The Accidental Bride

by Jane Feather

  She undressed in the passage again, so as not to awaken Olivia. If Olivia awoke, Phoebe would have to tell her everything. And she had no idea how to explain this bolt from the blue that had felled her just before Christmas.

  She’d been sitting in the apple loft, overlooking the stable yard, wrestling with a recalcitrant stanza of a poem she was writing, when Cato had ridden in with a troop of Roundhead cavalry. For two years Phoebe had seen the marquis of Granville go about his daily business and he’d barely impinged on her consciousness. And she’d known she hadn’t impinged on his. But that crisp December day something very strange had happened.

  Once more in her shift, Phoebe crept into bed beside Olivia. Her side of the bed was cold now, and she inched closer to Olivia. She was wide-awake and lay looking up at the dark shape of the tapestry tester, idly picturing the bucolic scene of a May Day celebration that was depicted above her.

  But her mind wouldn’t let go of the memory of that moment before Christmas when she’d fallen in love . . . or lust . . . or whatever this hideous inconvenience was . . . with Cato, Marquis of Granville.

  She’d watched him ride into the yard on his bay charger-something she’d seen many times. He’d been at the head of the troop, but when he’d drawn rein, Giles Crampton, his lieutenant, had come up beside him. Cato had leaned sideways to talk to him.

  He was bareheaded and Phoebe had noticed how in the sunlight his dark brown hair had a flicker of gold running through it. He’d moved a gauntleted hand in a gesture to Giles, and Phoebe’s heart had seemed to turn over. This kind of thing happened in poetry all the time. But, poet though she was, Phoebe was rarely plagued by an excess of sentiment, and she had never imagined that verse was a veritable expression of reality.

  And yet she’d sat in the apple loft, her quill dripping ink on her precious vellum, her apple halfway to her mouth, while the entire surface of her skin had grown hotter and hotter.

  He’d dismounted and she’d gazed, transfixed, at the power behind his agile movements. She’d gazed at his profile, noticing for the first time the slight bump at the bridge of his long nose, the square jut of his chin, the fine, straight line of his mouth.

  Phoebe grimaced fiercely in the darkness. It should have gone away . . . should have been a moment of angelic lunacy. But it hadn’t gone away. She heard his voice, his foot on the stair, and a deep throb started in her belly. When he walked into a room, she had to leave or sit down before her knees betrayed her.

  It was absurd. Yet she could do nothing about it. For a rational being, it was the ultimate injustice. And then two days ago her father had informed her that she was to replace her dead sister as Lord Granville’s wife. For a moment the world had spun on its axis. The glorious prospect of achieving her heart’s desire lay before her. Love and lust with the man whose simple presence was enough to set her heart beating like a drum.

  The marquis had been standing beside her father.

  He had nodded to her.

  Lord Granville had said nothing to her. Not one single word. He had simply nodded to her when her father had completed his announcement. After the announcement had come a brief catalogue of details relating to her dowry and the marriage settlements. And Cato had listened impassively. It was clear he’d heard it all before. Indeed, Phoebe had had the impression that he was either bored or pressed for time. But then he was always pressed for time. If he wasn’t conducting some siege of a royalist stronghold somewhere in the Thames valley, he was meeting with Cromwell and the other generals of the New Model Army, planning strategy in their headquarters outside Oxford.

  Phoebe and Olivia rarely saw him. They lived their own lives in the comfortable manor house that Cato had acquired in Woodstock, eight miles from Oxford, when the theatre of war had moved from the north of England to the south and west. He had not wanted to leave his family unprotected in Yorkshire and had brought them with him. Diana’s death had made little or no difference to his life, it seemed to Phoebe.

  It had, however, made a significant difference to Phoebe’s and Olivia’s. Freed of Diana’s tyranny, they’d been able to pursue their own interests without hindrance, and until two days ago . . . or rather until just before Christmas, Phoebe amended . . . nothing had occurred to disturb their peace.

  Now she was condemned to marry a man who would as soon marry a healthy sow if she came with the right dowry and the right breeding potential. Not even Dante’s inferno had created such a fiendish torment. She was to be compelled to spend the rest of her life with a man whom she loved and lusted after to the point of obsession, and who barely acknowledged her existence.

  And the unkindest cut of all—there was no one in whom she could confide. It was impossible to explain any of it to Olivia. There were no words . . . or at least none that Phoebe could think of.

  Portia would understand, but Portia was in Yorkshire. Ecstatically happy with Rufus Decatur. And if Cato Granville hadn’t been up and about at three in the morning, Phoebe would be on her way to Yorkshire.

  With something resembling a groan, Phoebe flung herself onto her side and closed her eyes.

  Downstairs, Cato snuffed the candles in his study, all but a carrying candle, and bent to poke a slipping log to the rear of the grate. He straightened and stood absently staring down at the fire. The full impact of Phoebe’s crazy intention was only just hitting him. What kind of woman would hurl herself out into the freezing night, without the slightest regard for the obvious dangers? Where had she been going, for God’s sake?

  And for what a reason! A young woman of Phoebe’s wealth and lineage not wishing to marry . . . actually prepared to reject the suit of a marquis! The girl had windmills in her head.

  He could perhaps understand it if her father was compelling her into marriage with some monster. If he was proposing to wed her to some repulsive ancient . . .

  Surely Phoebe couldn’t see him in such a light?

  The thought brought his head up. Of course that was an absurdity. He was in his prime, a man of five and thirty. True, he’d had ill luck with his wives—or they had had ill luck with their husband, he amended wryly. While it was hardly unusual for a man to have lost three wives before his thirty-fourth summer, it could perhaps strike an ominous note for an impressionable young woman preparing to become the fourth.

  But Phoebe had claimed to have no personal objections to him, only to the state of matrimony. And that, of course, was ridiculous.

  So was she perhaps unstable? Maybe he should think again. An hysterical wife given to irrational impulses was hardly a comfortable prospect. What kind of mother would she make?

  And that, after all, was the crux of the matter. He needed an heir of his own blood. Daughters were all very well, but they could not inherit the title or the estates.

  If he did not produce a male heir, then the Granville estates would pass to his stepson, his first wife’s child, whom he’d adopted as an infant because it had seemed the generous thing to do. It had never occurred to Cato in his own exuberant youth that he would fail to produce a son of his own loins to inherit his family name. By adopting the child, he had thought he was merely ensuring the boy’s future.

  A foolhardy gesture it had turned out to be.

  Cato’s mouth thinned as he thought of his first wife’s child. He would not trust Brian Morse further than he could throw him. He was plausible, charming, but his small eyes were shifty, his tongue too smooth for truth. There was something about him that set Cato’s teeth on edge, and had done since the boy was little more than a child. And for the crowning touch, Brian Morse was on the wrong side in the civil war raging through the land. He supported the king.

  Cato had long decided that the king must bow to the dictates of his subjects. He could no longer be permitted to lay waste the country’s resources for his own ends. He could no longer be permitted to ignore the will of the people. King Charles must be compelled to enact the reforms that Parliament had laid before him. Sooner than do that, the king had gone to war w
ith his people. And even those who, like Cato, were reluctant to take up arms against their sovereign had met his challenge.

  The king’s cause was all but lost, in Cato’s informed opinion. The Parliamentarians had reformed their armies under Oliver Cromwell, and the New Model Army, disciplined and well paid unlike its royalist opponents, was sweeping victoriously through the country.

  Which brought Cato back to Brian Morse.

  In these dangerous times it would take very little—a skirmish, a stray musket ball, a sweeping sword cut, a fall from his horse—to leave Brian Morse as head of the Granville clan. So, Cato would marry Phoebe. She was at hand and he was in a hurry. For all practical purposes the alliance could not be bettered.

  At eighteen the girl was still young enough to be influenced by her husband. He would be able to control any skittish tendencies.

  He pursed his lips, considering Phoebe with cool dispassion. She had a robust air, a sturdy figure with generous hips. A good childbearing figure. Much stronger, much less fragile seeming than her sister. She looked like a woman who would bear sons.

  No, she would make him a good wife. He would make sure of it. Cato went to the door, his carrying candle throwing a soft light ahead of him.

  Phoebe was awakened at first light by Olivia’s hand on her shoulder. “Phoebe, why are your clothes all over the floor?”

  “Wh . . . what?” Phoebe struggled onto an elbow. She blinked blearily at Olivia. She felt horrible, as if she hadn’t slept a wink. “What’s the time? It’s the middle of the night!” she protested. It certainly felt like the middle of the night.

  “No, it’s not. It’s nearly six o’clock,” Olivia stated. Her black eyes were sharply appraising in the pale oval of her face. She took a deep breath, concentrating on controlling the stammer that had plagued her from childhood.

  “Your clothes. They’re in the middle of the floor. They weren’t when we went to b-bed.”

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk,” Phoebe said.

  “Out of the house!” Olivia stared in patent disbelief.

  Phoebe shook her head. “No . . . I was going to but then it seemed too cold and dark, so I came back to bed again.” Which was not exactly a lie, she thought.

  Olivia was not convinced. “You’re fibbing,” she declared.

  Phoebe flopped back on the pillows again. Her eyes felt gritty, filled with sand, and she rubbed them with the heels of her palms.

  Olivia sat up, hugging her knees to her narrow chest. She frowned fiercely, her thick dark brows meeting over the bridge of the long Granville nose. “I suppose you really don’t wish to marry my father,” she said matter-of-factly.

  If only it were that simple! But Phoebe couldn’t see how to explain the complexities of her present dilemma to Cato’s daughter. “I don’t wish to get married at all. You know that,” she replied. “We agreed we wouldn’t ever marry . . . that day in the boathouse, with Portia.”

  “I know, b-but that was a long time ago,” Olivia said. “Things change. Look at Portia. Would you ever have believed Portia, of all of us, would have married?”

  “Portia’s a law unto herself,” Phoebe said. “She married because she chose to. I’m being made to.”

  Olivia contemplated this melancholy truth. “I know,” she said simply. “B-but at least it means we’ll always be able to live together.”

  “Until you get married,” Phoebe pointed out.

  “I’m not going to,” Olivia stated flatly.

  “That’s what we all said,” Phoebe reminded her again. “If it can happen to Portia and me, what makes you think you’ll be able to hold out?”

  Olivia’s fine mouth took an obstinate turn. Her pale cheeks became a little flushed. “No one will be able to force me to marry!” she said with low-voiced intensity.

  “Don’t you believe it,” Phoebe said glumly, dragging herself up against the pillows. “What say do women have in these matters? No one asked me for my opinion; quite the opposite. My father and yours just told me it was going to happen. I could have screamed and torn out my hair, but it would have made no difference. It’s the way things are, and it’ll be just as bad after I’m married. Probably worse.”

  She wrinkled her snub nose. “To add insult to injury, your father can’t possibly really wish to marry me. How could he?” She grabbed at her waist with a grimace. “Look at all this flesh! Diana was so slender and elegant and I’m as round as a sugar bun!”

  “You’re curvy and womanly,” Olivia said, as always stubbornly defending her friend, even against herself. “That’s what Portia said.”

  “Your father just wants a son, and I’m a convenient vehicle,” Phoebe said bluntly.

  Olivia regarded her in silence. She could think of no way to refute this very obvious truth. “You might like having a child,” she suggested after a minute.

  “It’s not going to happen in a hurry.”

  She sounded remarkably definite to Olivia. “How d’you know?” she inquired, her eyes curious.

  Phoebe stared into the middle distance. “There are ways to stop it happening.”

  “How?” Olivia gazed at her in wide-eyed fascination.

  “You know my friend Meg?”

  Olivia nodded eagerly. Meg was a herbalist and had a certain reputation for benign witchcraft in the village.

  “Well, she’s told me how to do it,” Phoebe said. “There are certain herbs that can prevent conception. She says it’s not foolproof, but usually it works.”

  “But why don’t you wish to give my father a child?”

  Phoebe looked into the distance again. “I just told you that he’s marrying me because I’m convenient. An accidental convenience. Until he stops seeing me in that light . . . really stops seeing me in that light . . . then I’ll not conceive.”

  She looked straight at Olivia now and there was a grimly determined set to her mouth. “Once I give him what he wants, he’ll never need to try to understand me, or see me for who I am. D’you see that, Olivia?”

  “Yes, of c-course I do.”

  “I would be a partner in his life,” Phoebe continued. “Not a dependent with limited uses.”

  “Married women are always dependent,” Olivia stated. “They can’t help but be . . . well, except for Portia,” she added.

  “What Portia can do, I can do,” Phoebe said.

  “But once you give my father an heir, I don’t expect he’ll trouble you much. He’s always so busy . . .” Olivia’s voice trailed off. She was not offering much in the way of comfort to her friend, who was facing the one situation they had always agreed to avoid. A situation that Olivia herself couldn’t bear to contemplate.

  “Not so busy that he won’t expect me to honor and obey implicitly in exchange for a roof over my head and clothes on my back,” Phoebe said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “He said as much. Wives aren’t people, they’re chattels.”

  Olivia shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There isn’t anything,” Phoebe declared. “I’m stuck with it. Unless I can do something about it. So I’m going to try.”

  2

  “Oh, do stand still, Lady Phoebe. How can I set these pins when y’are wrigglin’ around like an anthill . . . and just watch where you put your ’ands, now! Filthy, they are. They’ll leave great dirty marks all over, they will.”

  Phoebe sighed and curled her grime-encrusted hands into fists, holding them away from her skirts. She’d been in the village helping one of the young widows muck out her stable, and the time had run away from her, so she’d been late for the fitting and hadn’t had a chance to wash.

  “Do you think Portia will get here in time for the wedding, Olivia?”

  Olivia, from the window seat where she was alternately reading and watching the progress of the fitting, shook her head. “My father said it would b-be impossible for her to make the journey in less than four weeks, and we only sent to her three weeks ago.”

  Phoebe no
dded glumly. She was in sore need of some robust counsel of the kind that only Portia could provide.

  The wedding night. She could think of little else these days. She had only a hazy knowledge of the whats and wheres of the business, but when she imagined being in the great four-poster bed with Cato, her body caught fire. Whatever it was exactly that they would do, she reasoned that they had to be close to do it. Skin to skin . . . mouth to mouth. She could run her fingers through his hair, press her lips to the deep hollow of his throat. Inhale that rich masculine scent that he had. An indefinable mélange of aromas that she had come to associate just with Cato. It was his hair, his skin, the tang of leather and musk, the lavender of his linen, and the fresh, clean scents of the open air.

  “Oh, Lady Phoebe, keep still, do,” the seamstress exclaimed as Phoebe took an involuntary step forward with one foot off the stool she was standing on.

  “Let me look at the gown,” Phoebe said, brushing the woman aside and stepping down completely. She picked up the trailing hem and walked over to the console glass.

  Phoebe examined her reflection critically. “Hand-me-down gowns for a hand-me-down bride,” she remarked with a somewhat bitter smile. “Why on earth should people assume that what looked wonderful on Diana on her wedding day would look as wonderful on me?”

  The gown was of pearl-encrusted ivory damask and was caught under her breasts with a girdle of silver tissue. Five years before, Diana had married the marquis of Granville in this very gown. And she had looked exquisite, ethereal. Not so Phoebe, who looked dumpy and insipid.

  “And no one asked me if I wished to wear it!” she complained. “My father just said how economical it would be, and Lord Granville merely shrugged as if it didn’t matter a tinker’s damn what I wore to the altar.”

  “I don’t suppose he thinks it does,” Olivia said from an accurate knowledge of her parent. “He’s much more likely to think that a new gown would cost as much as outfitting three troopers of his militia. I wish the war would be over,” she added with a melancholy sigh. “It’s all my father ever thinks about.”