To Make a Marriage

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  One thing he knew, bright and early tomorrow he would find out.

  CHAPTER 12

  The next day dawned a beautiful, temperately cool, and blue-skied Friday. By mid-morning, Spencer had deemed it a perfect day for a trip out to a plantation home for a barbecue to be held the next day. He frowned, thinking how foreign those words were to him … plantation, barbecue. Amused, he could only shake his head. What new and wondrous adventures he was having in America. His hands clasped behind his back, he stood peering out his bedroom’s window at the cityscape and beyond to where he knew the Savannah River flowed. Though this very fine Redmond House was no more than several blocks from the water, he found he could not catch a glimpse of the river because of intervening oaks and grand houses and warehouses down at the docks.

  Abandoning that view for another, he stretched his body and his gaze acutely to his left to see the street out front. Abercorn, he believed it was named. Already it seemed fairly alive with fashionable carriages and beautifully dressed strollers passing by. He shifted his position again, looking down to the street below. This one ran alongside the Redmond House and was, he believed, East State Street. Yes, that was it. And the square across the way was Oglethorpe Square. Spencer smiled to himself. Not only was his body recovering rapidly—thank God for the Whitfield constitution—but his memory seemed also to be intact.

  “Forgive me for interrupting, Your Grace, but should you be up and about? You could give yourself a relapse.”

  Spencer slowly turned and saw his valet, who acted more like a nanny. The man’s heavy jowls gave him an unfortunate resemblance to a sad bulldog. “Thank you for your concern, Hornsby, but I’m feeling much stronger today.”

  Hornsby held a neat stack of folded white shirts in his arms. “Then we’ll definitely be making the trip to River’s End, sir?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. Not looking forward to the carriage ride again with Mr. Milton?”

  “No, sir, although one is very happy to be included at a … barbecue, Your Grace.” The man looked on the verge of shedding tears.

  “Oh, come now, Hornsby, it’s not as bad as all that.”

  “I fear it is, sir. From what Mr. Milton has ferreted out from that Ruby girl, a barbecue involves eating copious amounts of roasted pork or beef, or both, outdoors, sir. Some sort of picnic, one can only hope. Evidently it comes with all the fixin’s, too, whatever those are.”

  Spencer frowned. “Fixin’s? Sounds positively … grand. Or pagan.”

  “Indeed. Furthermore, Mr. Milton, with whom I do not often agree, but I do on this point, seems to think this is something the Church of England would not sanctify.”

  Spencer bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud and thereby horrifying his starchy valet. “I see. Then I suggest we not run home and tell the Archbishop of Canterbury of our attendance. However, I think I can reasonably assert that we will not be sacrificed on a stone altar at the end of the evening, Hornsby. From what I was told, they held that ceremony last month. So we should be safe.”

  Hornsby’s brown eyes widened dangerously. Then he pivoted about and made for the small dressing room off the bedroom. “I’ll see to your wardrobe, sir. And I will also pack your handgun. And plenty of ammunition.”

  “Thank you, Hornsby.” The hell of it was, Spencer couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t need it. Not because he actually feared being sacrificed, but because an attempt on his life had already been made once. A gut feeling, something he always listened to, told him that the incident in the alley had everything to do with whatever was worrying his wife. And he would not have his wife worried. She was carrying his child. A child, at any rate, Spencer instantly corrected himself, frowning at his slip of the tongue. Whoever’s child it was, worrying on its mother’s part could not be good for it, or for the mother.

  Concerning Spencer now was his insidiously growing desire to believe the child Victoria carried was his. He wanted to believe this for more than one reason, too. Into his traitorous mind appeared, as if summoned, Victoria’s beautiful oval face with her flawless skin, sky-blue eyes, and inviting rosebud of a mouth. Spencer’s breath caught, and he blinked, willing away the image of her visage surrounded by the curling cloud of her deeply brunette hair, which she could never seem to completely capture into any certain style. How very beautiful she was—

  “Damn it all to hell,” Spencer said forcefully, banishing from his consciousness the image of his wife and the desire for her that went with it. He absolutely could not allow his personal wants to influence a decision of such far-reaching consequences for his duchy. And so he wouldn’t. Duty and responsibility came first, and he would have to be guided by them, no matter how painful such decisions could be for him.

  Thus bolstered for having reaffirmed those points for himself, Spencer concentrated once again on the here and now. Already bathed and dressed and having eaten downstairs, with Edward as company, a breakfast of bacon and sausages and eggs, to which he had added three cups of dark coffee strong enough to curl his hair, wonderful buttermilk biscuits, and something devious called grits, Spencer pronounced himself ready to get out of Hornsby’s irritable way.

  And as the studious Mr. Milton was downstairs in the library attending to correspondence to England that Spencer had dictated, his orders for his staff were complete. This left him free to pursue other important activities. Uppermost in his mind was confronting his wife and holding a frank discussion of all the questions and concerns he had, several new ones of which she had raised only last evening when he’d awakened to find her seated by his bed. Spencer wondered how often during the time he’d been unconscious she had attended him. Had she done so out of duty and guilt? Perhaps a bit of both. But he wanted to think, though no good could come of such a thought, she’d sat by his bed because she cared and worried about him.

  “What the devil?” Spencer muttered. “Enough of this.” Angry that his unguarded thoughts always slipped away to her, he deemed it high time he presented himself in her bedroom for a private talk. And there he would stay, he promised himself, until he had the answers he wanted regarding what was going on around here—and he meant from the day she’d left Wetherington’s Point onward to this very one.

  On a mission now, Spencer left his bedroom and stalked down the hall, thinking what a relief it was to be able again to stalk about and stride purposefully. Damned hard to be in charge of a situation if one was wobbly kneed and forced to hang on to others just to get about. As he knew hers was the next bedroom on his left and down the short hallway from the staircase, Spencer freed his mind to wonder what his wife’s bedroom looked like. Would it reflect her? Or like his, since the furnishings here had not been designed with either of them in mind, but rather the elder Redmonds, would it be plush though impersonal? Not that it mattered or that he even cared … just a mental exercise to propel him onward. His sensual nature suggested, however, that this moment could be better spent wondering not what the bedroom looked like, but what Victoria looked like in the bed.

  The powerful stirrings of desire, never more than the next thought or sight of her away from betraying him, assailed Spencer and fashioned for him a seductive image of Victoria invitingly displayed atop her mattress, waiting for him; the bedding would be soft and full and tangled; she’d have that doe-eyed, just-now-awakening look on her face, her lips full and so in need of being kissed; the thin strap of her filmy nightgown would be sliding off her soft shoulder; her thick and lustrous mahogany curls alluringly arrayed about her, cascading nearly to her waist—

  Rigid now as a tree trunk and barely able to catch a deep breath or think a deep thought, Spencer forswore knocking first and excitedly opened the door onto a darkened bedroom and the sounds of coughing and retching. The close, sour smell of the room’s air stopped him in his tracks and had him going soft and wrinkling his nose in distaste. Well, one thing he knew: This was definitely his pregnant wife’s bedroom. His first thought was to back quietly out of the room and leave her i
n privacy with her wretched state. And go do what? Walk about and be bored? No, he should see if he could help somehow. Or at least show some concern. After all, her present and appalling condition could very well be his fault entirely.

  Courage, man. Leaving the door open behind him to take advantage of the light streaming in from the windows at both ends of the hallway, Spencer strode purposefully into the deeply shadowed room. “Victoria?”

  A strangled gasp met his greeting, as it were, only to be followed by her terribly sick-sounding voice calling out: “Go away. Please. Leave me alone.”

  He knew he should leave her be, but pity and guilt suddenly assailed him. The poor woman is as sick as a dog, and I’ve never given one thought to how she is faring. “I’m sorry, Victoria, but I’m staying.”

  “Oh, God,” she groaned. “What do you want?”

  What, indeed. “I, uh, came to see how you are this morning.”

  “Well, sir, I am sick. Very sick.”

  Irritated at the darkness in the room because it hindered him in readily seeing her, Spencer called out: “Where the devil are you?”

  “Go away! I don’t want you to see me like this! Please.”

  Manners dictated that he should honor her wish. But, as the saying went … in for a penny, in for a pound. Far from going away, Spencer listened, trying to locate her by her sniffling and shuffling about. Was she actually hiding from him? Would he have to search under the bed? “I have every right to ascertain your well-being, madam. I am your husband—”

  “So?” This was yelled at what Spencer suspected was the top of her vocal range.

  The sound gave him a sharp pain behind his left eye and made both of his ears hurt. Blinking, realizing his eyes watered as well, he waited for his eyesight to adjust to the semidarkness. Aha. Just ahead of him and to his right was the bed. Directly across the way were the windows, which had to be closed, as the draperies were drawn against the day and no breeze stirred the fabric. “I’ve decided to stay, Victoria, and tend to you.”

  “Tend to me? You? I think not, sir. If you wish to help, go get Rosanna for me.”

  “I have no intention of doing that. I would have to ask every female in the house if she was this Rosanna creature because I have no idea what the girl looks like—”

  “She’s not a girl,” his wife shrieked. “How many times must I tell you she is a gray-haired woman past middle age? There aren’t that many of them here, Spencer. Find her.”

  He’d always heard that women in a delicate condition sometimes suffered sudden foul moods. This seemed to be one of them. Still, he had no intention of searching for her maid. Instead, he made his way over to the curtains. “I will not. But where is the woman when her mistress is in this much distress? Such neglect. Does she fancy being fired in a foreign country?”

  “Don’t you dare.” Her voice was low and threatening enough to stand the hairs up on Spencer’s arms. “I sent her away with the … the other basin. She gave me this clean one and a cold rag before she left. I told her not to come back because she gets sick when I do.”

  “Then why, in God’s name, would you want me to go get her now? Damned useless wench, I’d say.”

  “She most certainly is not. For the love of God, Spencer, go away. Forget Rosanna, too. Just leave me here to die.”

  “I’m sorry but I cannot do that. You could be carrying my heir, madam. And I begin to think you are, because, as sick as you are, and drawing on the stories I’ve heard from the Whitfield women, the first people in the world Whitfield men make deathly ill of us are our mothers. Brace yourself, Victoria, I’m going to open the curtains and windows.”

  “No!” Hers was the wail of a lost soul.

  But Spencer did just as he’d threatened—he flung the draperies back and raised the windows up in their casements. Blessedly clean and fresh air and wondrous sunlight filled the room. Spencer leaned over, bracing himself on the sill and breathing in deeply of great draughts of Savannah’s finest air. But Victoria’s sudden cry, apparently against the light, startled Spencer so badly he nearly fell out the window and onto the hard ground two floors below. To save himself, he reared back … and hit the back of his neck on the raised window. The impact sent him to his knees. He saw stars and thought he would pass out.

  Victoria’s gasp preceded: “Spencer? Are you all right?”

  As the world spun sickeningly, Spencer nearly bit through his bottom lip to keep from spouting every obnoxiously foul combination of curse words he knew. “No, Victoria, I am not all right. I have not been all right since the day I arrived at Wetherington’s Point nearly a month ago to find you inexplicably gone. Since that day, I have been on a merry chase for answers, which lead only to more questions and dead ends and could, in reality, end in my actual death. Does that answer your question, madam?”

  A moment of silence ensued. Then, “You spoke harshly to me,” she burbled, right before she began to cry.

  Spencer cursed softly but in earnest as he dropped to all fours—if he tried to stand up, something told him, he’d join his wife in retching—and crawled across the carpet toward the sound of Victoria’s pathetic sobs. He found her seated on the floor with her back pressed against her disheveled bed’s wooden side rail and her head leaned back against the mattress and bedding. A large porcelain basin, such as one would find in a chamber set, reposed between her long and lovely legs, which were splayed straight out in front of her.

  Spencer put a tentative hand on her arm. “Victoria?”

  Clad in her nightgown, which was hiked up to her thighs, she held a damp cloth in her hand and rolled her head slowly to stare bleakly at him. Her pathetically tear-streaked face could not hide the ravages of her morning’s illness. “Do not touch me. I shall bite you, if you do.”

  Believing her completely, Spencer snatched his hand back. “Fair enough.” As he roved his gaze over her face, he felt an intense sympathy swell his heart. “You poor creature, look at you. I had no idea.”

  Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped at them with her damp cloth. “Nor did I want you to know. I had no wish for you to see me like this. These hideous dry heaves are the worst.”

  He nodded his understanding. “I’ve experienced them before myself. Obviously, not from the same cause. Too much strong drink, in my case.”

  Spencer eased himself into position next to her, mimicking her pose. Legs straight out in front of him, back against the side rail, head resting against the bedding. He would have liked nothing better than to take her in his arms and hold her, comfort her, but she had given ample warning that should he touch her, she would bite him. Even worse, he knew if he held her like this, tenderly, intimately, he might never let her go. Damned awkward situation!

  “If I recall, Victoria,” he said quickly, conversationally, “you weren’t like this—I mean this sick—when we were first married or even all the time we were in London.” Then, he remembered they’d had separate bedrooms there, too, and he hadn’t seen her very many times in the morning. Wondering if he’d been as unaware and unattentive then as he had been up to now, he added, “Were you?”

  “No. I wasn’t anywhere near this sick then. An occasional queasiness. It’s only been this bad in the past few weeks.”

  “I see. I’d say I’m sorry … if I thought I was responsible.”

  Hurt and shame sparked in her eyes. She said nothing, but stared at him and then looked away. Raising the cloth she held and pressing it to her forehead, she again laid her head back against the bedding and closed her eyes.

  What an unmitigated ass I am. Why did I say such a thing as that—and especially at this moment? He hadn’t meant to add insult to injury; he’d spoken without thinking. From now on, man … think. Look at her, for God’s sake. In fact, he could not look away from the delicate sweep of her eyelashes against her pale skin and the intense vulnerability of her slender white throat with the steadily beating pulse at its base. The sight tore at his heart, and made a mockery of his earlier erotic t
houghts of her.

  Certainly, she wore the thin nightgown with the falling strap he had envisioned in his hallway fantasy. And her wonderful mahogany-colored hair did hang about her shoulders, but in damp strings. The poor woman was all but unrecognizable as the beautiful woman he had wed. Right now, she looked more like a cholera victim … weak, pale, thin, dark circles under her eyes … than she did an object of desire. And yet, he felt no revulsion, only tender regard and concern—and guilt for being such a dolt.

  “I’m sorry, Victoria,” Spencer blurted, almost before he knew he would. But he meant it sincerely, he realized. He felt a warm flush rise up his neck and cheeks. He didn’t apologize often or easily, but found he needed to say more. “I said a tactless and uncalled-for thing. I hope you can forgive me.”

  Victoria moved the damp cloth away from her forehead as she opened her eyes and turned her head his way. “Are you apologizing to me, Spencer?”

  The way she said it. As if it were a momentous event she could not believe. Self-conscious pride had Spencer shifting his position and frowning at her. “I believe that is the idea when one says one is sorry.”

  His reward was the ghost of a smile she sent him. “Then I forgive you.”

  Surprising him was how good her forgiveness made him feel. “Good. Has a doctor, uh, seen you, Victoria? Forgive my indelicacy, but I mean … is everything going along as it should?”

  She nodded. “Of course, your doctor in England checked in on me. And then when Dr. Hollis was here to see about you, I swore him to secrecy on my behalf and told him of my condition. He examined me and said everything appeared normal. Even the sickness.”

  Intense relief washed over Spencer. “Jolly good, then. Glad to hear it.” Then he saw them sitting there on the floor, like two sulking children sent to their room for misbehaving. It was suddenly funny, and Spencer betrayed his thought by chuckling.