The Accidental Bride

by Jane Feather

  And into this dark and sweat-tangled world of their own came a knock on the door.

  Cato pulled himself up. “What is it?”

  “Me, m’lord.” Giles Crampton’s robust tones called through the oak. “You ordered me ’ere fer dinner at noon, sir. We’re to set off after, you said.”

  Cato uttered a barnyard expletive and got off the bed. “I’ll be down in five minutes, Giles.”

  “Right y’are, m’lord. I’ll tell Bisset to put the meat back in the warmin’ oven, shall I?”

  Cato glanced at the cloak on the mantel. It was a quarter past noon. “Damn his impertinence!” Cato muttered, stripping off his disordered clothing. Giles always found a way to make his point.

  “I don’t think I can get up,” Phoebe murmured, stretching languidly. “I seem to be dissolved.”

  Cato looked down at her as she lay in an abandoned sprawl on the bed, her skirts pushed up, exposing the sweet white plumpness of her thighs and the small curve of her belly. The dark bush at the base of her belly glistened with the juices of their loving. Clearly her responses the previous night had been no artful pretense.

  “Where did it come from?” he muttered.

  “Where did what come from?” Unconsciously Phoebe passed her hands in a long caress over her body.

  “Your wantonness,” he said, tapping his mouth reflectively with his fingertips. “I’ve never come across it before in a woman of your breeding.”

  There was a note in his voice that made Phoebe sit up, pushing down her skirts. “Is it wrong, then?”

  Cato hesitated for a minute too long before he shook his head. “No . . . no, of course not.” He gave a half laugh that didn’t sound particularly mirthful and went to the armoire for his leather riding britches and woolen jerkin.

  Phoebe dragged herself off the bed. Why had he hesitated?

  Cato dressed swiftly, saying as he strode from the room, “Hurry, Phoebe, I don’t relish any more of Giles’s veiled impertinence.”

  Phoebe dipped the washcloth into the basin and wrung it out. He’d been as eager for that passionate lust as she had. So why did she feel this unease? Thoughtfully she tidied herself and hurried down to the dining parlor.

  Everyone was already at table when she came in. Giles Crampton cast her a knowing sidelong glance which infuriatingly made her blush. She took her seat with a somewhat incoherent apology for having kept them waiting and hastily reached for her wine goblet.

  “Have you decided to play Gloriana, Phoebe?” Olivia inquired, helping herself to roast mutton and onion sauce. She studiously ignored Brian Morse, who sat opposite her.

  “I’m thinking about it.” Relieved at this ordinary turn of conversation, Phoebe looked over at Cato, “Do you think, sir, that some of your soldiers would be willing to take part? I’m writing the scene where Elizabeth addresses the troops and says those things about having the heart of a man in the weak body of a woman, and it would make a better spectacle if there were some real troops for her to address.”

  Giles snorted. “Over my dead body, m’lady! They’re soldiers, not play actors.”

  Phoebe was too used to Giles to take offense, but she could mount her own spirited defense. “I thought a midsummer pageant might cheer people up,” she said. “Life’s so gloomy and hard for everyone with the war, and it’s been going on for so long. Raising morale is an honorable enough task for a soldier, I would have thought.”

  “You’re writing a play, Lady Granville?” Brian sounded amused.

  “A pageant,” she corrected.

  “Oh, I do trust you’ll find a part for me,” he said in the same tone.

  “Surely you won’t still b-be here at midsummer?” Olivia said in undisguised horror, looking at him for the first time since the meal began. “That’s months away!”

  Phoebe broke in as she saw Cato’s expression. “I’m sure I can find a part for you, Mr. Morse, if you’re still here. But what about the soldiers, my lord? Real ones would be much more effective than villagers dressed up, don’t you think?”

  “Undoubtedly,” he agreed, quelling Olivia with a glare. “But I have to agree with Giles that the men have better things to do than play at amateur dramatics, however worthy the motive.”

  “So, you’re an amateur playwright?” Brian pressed, before Phoebe could respond to Cato’s careless dismissal of her enterprise. “It was always quite a popular activity at court before the war. But not too many ladies indulged in the pursuit, as I recall.” He offered a humoring smile and sipped his wine.

  “Phoebe is a very accomplished poet,” Olivia declared. “I dare swear no c-court poet would be ashamed to acknowledge her writing.”

  “Indeed.” Brian’s eyebrows rose. “I hadn’t realized you had frequented court circles.”

  “Phoebe has and she told me about the empty-headed courtiers,” Olivia said.

  Brian ignored this. “Maybe you would show me some of your work, Lady Granville. I have, after all, some experience of what’s considered good poetry at court. And, of course, you must please the court if you are to succeed.”

  “I write to please myself, sir,” Phoebe said with unconscious hauteur. “I have no particular desire to shine at court, if indeed the court is ever reinstated. Indeed, as Olivia said, my few visits there at the beginning of the war gave me a great dislike for its posturing and pretensions.”

  Brian recognized a snub when he heard one. Strangely, instead of infuriating him, it piqued his interest. Little sister had nothing at all in common with big sister, it seemed. He regarded her over the lip of his glass. Her hair was tumbling from its pins; the upstanding collar of the blue gown was rather limp. In fact, it almost looked as if she’d slept in it. It hadn’t looked quite so bad earlier that morning before the trip to church. He wondered what on earth she could have been doing in it.

  “Perhaps you didn’t meet James Shirley,” he suggested. “A man of little or no pretension.”

  “Oh, yes, I most particularly admire Mr. Shirley’s dramas,” Phoebe interrupted, forgetting her moment of irritation. “He has no pretension at all.”

  “You’ll need music for your pageant, Phoebe,” Olivia said, refusing to be shut out of the conversation by Brian. “Have you thought about it?”

  “Not really. I wish I could find a composer like Henry Lawes.” Phoebe passed Olivia a dish of buttered salsify.

  “Ah, the incomparable Mr. Lawes,” Brian murmured. “I saw him at a performance of Comus once with John Milton.”

  “Oh . . . you’ve met John Milton?” Phoebe’s fork hung neglected halfway to her mouth.

  “The gentleman has a great conceit of himself,” Cato observed.

  “Well, he’s a very fine poet,” Phoebe’s fork continued its journey. “That must be some excuse.”

  “But I hardly think you’re aspiring to such exalted literary circles,” Cato commented with a slight smile.

  “I might be,” Phoebe muttered.

  Cato raised his eyebrows incredulously. “I confess my interest in this pageant grows apace. Perhaps I could persuade Henry Lawes to cast a glance over it with an eye to composing the music.”

  “Do you know him, sir?” Phoebe regarded him across the table with a distinctly martial gleam in her eye. She had heard the sardonic note.

  “Actually, quite well,” Cato said. “Before the war, I met him many times at court. I also have some acquaintance with Mr. Milton these days. He is now staunchly for Parliament.”

  “Well, you may rest assured, my lord, that I have no inflated sense of my own poetic abilities,” Phoebe stated, taking up her glass and drinking deeply.

  Cato contented himself with a nod. He tossed his napkin to the table and pushed back his chair. Giles with clear relief followed suit. Talk of poets and composers was way outside his sphere of interest.

  “We should be on our way, Brian. It’s an hour’s ride,” Cato said.

  “Yes, of course.” Brian bowed his head in agreement. Things were moving swiftly but he
was under no illusion that Cato trusted his change of heart. He would be interrogated this afternoon, but he had every confidence that he would convince his interrogators.

  It was close to two o’clock that afternoon when Phoebe and Olivia left the house. The sky was heavy, a black-edged gray that looked as if it held more snow. Phoebe, mindful of the morning’s accident, had changed into one of her old woolen gowns and armed herself with a stout stick with which to test out snowdrifts. They took the road into the village. It was longer than across the fields, but the fields were impassable.

  The snow was thick in the woods and Phoebe plowed ahead, plunging her stick into the snow before each step. Olivia followed, carefully stepping into Phoebe’s footprints, until they emerged in the small clearing.

  “Meg’s at home.” Phoebe pointed to the smoke curling from the cottage chimney.

  “She hasn’t been out at all.” Olivia gestured to the virgin expanse of snow leading from the gate to the front door. Cat prints zigzagged among the bushes, but there was no other indication that anyone had been around. “Although of c-course a broomstick wouldn’t leave tracks,” she added mischievously.

  It was not a successful joke. Phoebe glared at her and stalked off up the path.

  Olivia stumbled after her. “Oh, c-come on, Phoebe. It was in jest.”

  “I didn’t think it was funny.” Phoebe raised her stick to bang on the door.

  “I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “Forgive me?”

  Phoebe glanced at her and then smiled. “Of course. Come on, let’s go in before we turn into icicles.” She banged on the door with her stick.

  It was a minute or two before they heard the bar being lifted and the door creaked open. Meg, wrapped in a thick blanket, her head swathed in flannel, tried to smile and grimaced instead. She stood back, gesturing that they should come in.

  “What is it? Are you ill?” Phoebe asked in concern.

  “Toothache,” Meg mumbled. “You have to help me draw it.” She laid a hand to her flannel-wrapped cheek. “I’ve tried everything. Oil of cloves, witch hazel. It has to come out.”

  “My father pulled one of my teeth when I was little,” Olivia remarked. “He tied string around the door latch and slammed the door. It hurt,” she added rather doubtfully.

  “It won’t hurt as much as it does now,” Meg declared. “Come now, Phoebe, put me out of my misery.” She sat on a small stool beside the fire, and the one-eared cat jumped onto her lap.

  Meg’s teeth were a constant source of trouble for her. Phoebe had performed this service for her friend before and knew how to be both swift and gentle. She found the string, located the rotten tooth, and the task was over in a second. Meg rushed to the basin in the corner of the cottage, while Phoebe stared at the tooth dangling from the string. The cat jumped onto the windowsill and began to wash himself.

  “What a lot of blood,” Olivia observed with habitual curiosity. “You wouldn’t think such a small thing could c-cause so much.”

  “You wouldn’t think it could cause so much pain,” Meg said thickly, raising her head from the basin and reaching up for a vial on the shelf above. She rinsed out her mouth with the contents and then sighed with relief. “Such agony . . . you can’t believe.”

  “Do you want the tooth?” Phoebe handed it to her.

  Meg took it and tied a knot in the string, slipping it over her head. “Maybe it’ll act as a talisman against future toothache.” She grimaced and touched her still-swollen face. “Thank heavens you came.”

  “There’s something I came to tell you.” Phoebe’s face was suddenly very grave. “There’s talk of a witch in the village. The vicar was raving this morning.”

  Meg nodded slowly. “That’s no surprise. You remember when you were here last I was called to a sick child?”

  “Yes.” Phoebe perched on the edge of the table.

  “Well, the child died soon after I physicked him.”

  Olivia ceased her examination of Meg’s alabaster jars and glass vials of potions. “What of?”

  Meg shrugged and drew her blanket closer around her. “I can’t say. He was fine when I left, but according to his mother fell into convulsions an hour later. He was dead when I reached him.”

  “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do,” Phoebe said hesitantly.

  “You and I know that,” Meg said dourly. “The child’s mother cursed me. The father spat at me. There was a crowd there, murmuring and whispering.”

  Phoebe crossed her arms over her breast with an involuntary shudder. There was a jolt of fear deep in her belly. “What were they saying?”

  “That I had laid a curse on the child.”

  “So it was you the vicar was bellowing about,” Olivia said, coming over to Phoebe. She laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “Like as not,” Meg said. “Superstition is an unpredictable evil.” She reached up to the drying rack for a handful of thyme and another of verbena. “Set the kettle on the trivet, Olivia. I need some tea for the swelling.”

  “It seems to have come out of nowhere,” Phoebe said. “It was but last week that you cured the Bailey girl’s fever . . .. And look at the Harvey children. Last month they could barely walk with the rickets, and now they’re running all over the village.”

  “That was then. This is now.”

  “Maybe on the way home I’ll pay a visit to the Bear in the village, hear what people are saying. If they are talking such foolishness, I’ll have a few things to say of my own.” Phoebe’s eyes snapped.

  Meg shook her head. “Have a care, Phoebe. Tar sticks.” She dropped herbs into an earthenware teapot as the kettle began to steam.

  “Tar doesn’t stick to Lady Granville,” Phoebe said stoutly.

  “This tar is no respecter of rank,” Meg replied. “You remember Lady Constance . . . she was not spared the witch finder.”

  Phoebe frowned. “But she was accused by her husband’s mistress. And when that was known, she was released.”

  Meg inclined her head in faint acknowledgment, but Phoebe could tell that she was unconvinced. “She was still not spared the witch finder,” Meg repeated. “In open court.”

  “That would be terrible,” Olivia said, turning pale. To be exposed naked in open court for the minute examination of the witch finder with his long pins was a horror not to be contemplated.

  “An understatement,” Meg said dryly. “But we must hope it won’t come to that.” She poured water on the herbs in the teapot, and the fragrant steam filled the small space.

  “Well, I shall see what I can discover.” Phoebe bent to kiss Meg. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you need this afternoon?”

  “No, my dear.” Meg patted her cheek. “Sleep is my greatest need and that I can get alone.”

  “Well, send word to the house if you’re uneasy. Unless. . .” Phoebe paused. “Unless you’d consider coming back with us now. No one will harass you under Lord Granville’s roof. And when it blows over, you can return.”

  Meg shook her head decisively. “No, indeed not. I thank you, but I’m not about to leave my home because of some ignorant mischief makers.”

  Phoebe had expected nothing else and didn’t press the matter.

  “I wonder what my father would say if we brought Meg home with us,” Olivia said thoughtfully as they made their way back down the path.

  “What could he possibly say?” Phoebe asked in genuine puzzlement.

  Olivia cast her a quick look. “He might not see things the way you do.”

  Phoebe frowned. She had noticed that Cato did not see the issues of the village and his tenants the way she did.

  “My father is a very just magistrate and very generous to his tenants,” Olivia said. “But he doesn’t like to g-get personally involved. He’s the lord of the manor; it’s not his business.”

  “Well, it’s my business,” Phoebe said after a minute’s thought. “I do like to get personally involved.”

  “Perhaps you c-can change his view,” Olivia offe
red but without much conviction.

  “Perhaps,” Phoebe said. They had reached the lane leading back to the manor. “You go on home. I’m going to make a detour in the village, ask some questions about Meg, and I’ll follow you.”

  “Should you go alone?” Olivia sounded doubtful.

  “They might not talk so freely if you’re there,” Phoebe said. “And no one’s going to molest me. These are my friends.”

  “Yes, you see, that’s the difference between you and my father,” Olivia pointed out. “He would never c-consider that his tenants were his friends.”

  Phoebe contemplated this insight as she hurried through the village. She had no doubt that Olivia was right, but how to reconcile that attitude of Cato’s with her own? Therein lay the puzzle. She was firmly convinced her own view was the only correct one, so if someone had to change, it would have to be Cato.

  Still frowning, she turned into the Bear Inn, where all gossip put down its roots.

  “Afternoon, Lady Phoebe.” The landlord greeted her as she entered the dark hallway. “What can I do for you?”

  Phoebe had decided on the direct approach to her errand. “I was wondering if you’d seen anything of Meg, Ben,” she said.

  The man’s face darkened and he turned and spat into a corner. “I’d not be wantin’ to,” he muttered. “Saving your presence, Lady Phoebe, that one’s got the evil eye.”

  Phoebe clenched her gloved hands. “You know that’s nonsense, Ben. Don’t you remember how she cured your mother’s rheumatism? Singing her praises from the rooftops, you were then.”

  The landlord looked a little self-conscious and he avoided her eye. “Aye, but bad things’re ’appenin’. First there was the child, and now there’s been a murrain out Shipley way.”

  “What’s that to do with Meg?” Phoebe demanded.

  Ben shrugged. “There’s those that saw ’er in the dark o’ the moon, walkin’ the field. The cows fell sick days after.”

  “Oh, you know better than to spout such fairy stories!”

  “Aye, well, ’appen the witch finder’ll discover the truth,” Ben said.

  Phoebe felt the blood drain from her face. “He’s been sent for?”