The Marriage Act

by Alyssa Everett

  And saying he wanted to show her off in London...How many of the plans he’d outlined were genuine, and how many were merely for her family’s benefit? After five years in exile at Halewick, Caro longed to spend a Season in Town, especially if John was willing to squire her about, or at least to appear at her side often enough to keep the ton from speculating on the state of their marriage. She wouldn’t mind attending a few balls and parties with him, either. They’d never even danced together.

  “Did they have the Season in Vienna as we do here?” Aunt Ella asked, looking at Caro.

  She tried to remember what she’d read in her travel books. “They have Ball Season, but it’s in the winter. It’s called, um...”

  “Fasching,” John supplied, to her immense relief. “It’s German for ‘carnival.’ They’re Romish there, so the Season begins in November, peaks in January and February, and then ends with the beginning of Lent. There are balls for the whole populace, not merely the upper reaches of society.”

  “It makes the winters much less dreary,” Caro said, feeling she was on safe ground with such a remark. Weather was weather, in Austria surely as much as in England.

  John nodded. “And December is always lively, with everyone congregating in special Christmas markets full of hot food and drink, and decorations on the trees.”

  “I expect you’re going to miss it this year, John,” her father said.

  Strange that he’d directed the remark at John, rather than at her. She’d always filled her letters with details intended to make her imaginary life in Vienna sound delightful and carefree. But then, John had done most of the talking just now, so perhaps he’d seemed more enthusiastic than she had.

  John shook his head. “I’m glad to be home. As long as I’m with Caro...” He looked across at her. “Well, I think I could be happy on a desert island.” He laughed. “I’m quite sure I could be happy on a desert island, provided Caro was there with me and she was happy too.”

  Goodness, it was a shame she couldn’t applaud his performance. John sounded so sincere, he’d left them all wearing fond, sentimental looks, the sort of indulgent expressions people usually reserved for adorable children and the newly affianced.

  Except for Sophia. She was gazing at John as if he were cake batter and she intended to lick the bowl.

  * * *

  When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner, John took a seat beside Caro. He was careful to keep just the right amount of distance between them, tempering his wish to be close to her with the recollection of her words the night before—”It’s not going to be believable if we overdo it.”

  “I was hoping we might prevail upon Caro to play the pianoforte for us,” Lady Fleetwood said. “I didn’t ask last night because I knew she must be tired after spending most of the day on the road, but I do so enjoy her playing.”

  John had the presence of mind not to say, Caro plays the pianoforte? It was news to him, though he’d be expected to know all about it if he and Caro really had been living together for the past five years. “Yes, will you play for us, darling?”

  Caro colored up becomingly. “If you like—but only a song or two, Aunt Ella, if you don’t mind. I’d rather talk with all of you.”

  He stood when she rose, and her evening gown of light silk rustled as she slipped past him on her way to the pianoforte. The faint scent of eau d’ange, the same perfume she’d worn on the day he proposed, lingered in the air as he resumed his seat.

  It was only natural that his gaze should turn her way—she meant to play for them, after all. She paged through the Fleetwoods’ stack of music, thick lashes fanning her cheeks. Her dark ringlets brushed her shoulders, and her long swanlike neck was a graceful arch.

  “Do you play an instrument, Lord Welford?” Miss Fleetwood asked.

  He tore his eyes away from his wife. “I can scratch out a tune on the violin, but not well enough to play in company.”

  “John sings,” Bishop Fleetwood said. “He was in the Chapel Choir at Winchester, and a fine soloist, as well. Or is my memory playing tricks on me?”

  Caro looked up sharply from the music she’d been studying, her brows lifted in surprise. Clearly, she hadn’t known he sang any more than he’d known she played the pianoforte.

  “I sing a little,” John said. “But only when prevailed upon.”

  Lady Fleetwood smiled. “Then consider yourself prevailed upon.”

  “Yes, come and sing with me, darling,” Caro called.

  He sensed there was as much curiosity as acting behind the request, but he rose and joined her at the piano.

  “What about this one?” she asked, showing him the sheet music.

  “‘The Last Rose of Summer’?” It was one of Thomas Moore’s simple Irish airs. “Wouldn’t you rather play something more complex?”

  “No, I like that song.”

  It was generous of her—she was clearly choosing the piece because it made for good singing, not good piano playing. But then, she knew her family better than he did. Perhaps they would prefer to hear something popular and melodic rather than something technically difficult. “Very well.”

  She struck up the tune, and after a few bars of introduction, John began to sing.

  ’Tis the last rose of summer,

  Left blooming alone.

  All her lovely companions

  Are faded and gone...

  It was a terribly sentimental air, with a simple tune and lyrics that hinted at loneliness and loss. But John rather liked sentimental airs, and with Caro’s responsive playing backing up his baritone, he did his best to bring out all the heartbreak and longing in the song. The emotions weren’t hard to conjure up. He had only to remember how he’d felt when he’d stepped off the boat at Calais on his way to Vienna, the whole width of the Channel separating him from Caro and England, a new bridegroom whose marriage was already in ruins.

  When true hearts lie withered,

  And fond ones are flown,

  Oh, who would inhabit

  This bleak world alone?

  When the song came to the end, he expected a smattering of polite applause. Instead their audience sat in silence. John glanced at Caro, gripped by the dawning sense they’d just made fools of themselves.

  Then the room burst into enthusiastic applause.

  “My heavens, that was beautiful,” Lady Fleetwood said. “I could scarcely breathe!”

  “But so sad,” Miss Fleetwood said with a sigh.

  Sir Geoffrey discreetly wiped a tear from his eye. “You have a fine voice, Lord Welford.”

  “Just astonishing!” Lady Fleetwood agreed. “I never heard one half so true.”

  Caro was gawking at him. He felt self-conscious, stealing her thunder when Lady Fleetwood had called upon her first. “Thank you. You’re all most kind, but now perhaps I might turn the pages for Caro so she can play something more challenging for us.”

  She chose a Mozart sonata in D, and soon it was his turn to be impressed. It was a cheerful but demanding piece that ended in a series of rapid arpeggios, and she played it with confidence and skill. The effect was rather like a clear, sunlit stream cascading down a waterfall. It dissipated any lingering sense of loss his song had left behind.

  He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. Even if he hadn’t known she played the pianoforte, she’d always impressed him as accomplished. It was one of the chief reasons he’d lost sight of how young she was when he’d decided to propose. And she looked so lovely playing the piece, so serious and graceful, his heart ached just looking at her.

  When she finished, he leaned in and whispered, “That was wonderful. You have quite a gift.”

  Her eyes were bright. “I might say the same of you. Why didn’t you tell me you could sing like that?”

  “The s
ame reason you never told me you could play the pianoforte.”

  When they went back to join the group, Bishop Fleetwood was smiling benevolently at them. “Well done, both of you.” To John he added, “Thank you, my boy. It does my heart good to watch the two of you together.”

  Caro beamed, but the gratified feeling John had enjoyed only a moment before flooded away. He felt like a fraud. It didn’t seem right, lying to these people who’d made him feel so welcome. They were Caro’s family—and, at least in a purely legal way, that made them his family too.

  “I do love Caro’s playing,” Lady Fleetwood said as John resumed his seat.

  “Yes, she’s a fine performer,” he agreed.

  He hoped that was just enough honesty to keep his conscience from paining him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

  —Samuel Johnson

  As soon as they retired and Caro reached the bedroom she shared with John, a wave of relief washed over her at the luxury of being alone with him again. She no longer had to fret about the impression she was making, or whether Sophia was likely to give away their secret.

  It surprised her that she could feel so relaxed when she still had to face the night alone with John, and it surprised her too that she’d enjoyed the entire evening so much. When her father had suggested that John sing, she’d supposed he would have a pleasant enough voice, or Papa would never have brought it up. But pleasant was the extent of her expectations—she’d assumed John’s singing would be good but lifeless, an unfeeling exercise in hitting the right notes. Instead it had seemed to come straight from some lonely place inside him, a place she’d never supposed existed. When he’d reached the end of the song, it had left her feeling so melancholy, she hadn’t known whether to clap or to cry.

  He really had done a marvelous job so far. She’d had her doubts he could convince anyone he was capable of real warmth, but he was proving her wrong.

  “It was a fine day today, John,” Caro said impulsively as he set about undressing. “You’ve done everything I asked of you and more. I’m truly grateful.”

  His forehead creased in a frown, as if he weren’t entirely sure what to make of her remark. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry about last night, if I seemed on edge. It wasn’t because I was finding it difficult to be nice to you, but merely the strain of seeing Papa and my family again for the first time.”

  “Thank you,” he said again.

  Apparently that was all she was going to get out of him—two words at a time. She’d humbled herself and apologized, and he’d thanked her, but he was done with being devoted now that they no longer had an audience. So much for John’s thawing into a real human being. She held in a sigh as she slipped between the sheets, careful to keep to her half of the bed.

  John kept to his half of the bed, as well.

  She was almost asleep when he said—quietly and with a finality that suggested he wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but he said it just the same—”I was proud of you tonight.”

  * * *

  The next day, Aunt Ella proposed that Caro—and John and Ronnie too, if they were so inclined—accompany her to Strelley, to visit Caro’s married cousin Anne and her family. It was only a fourteen-mile drive, a little more than two hours from Stanling Priory, which meant they could enjoy a long afternoon call and still return in time for dinner.

  “I know you must be heartily sick of looking at the inside of a carriage,” Lady Fleetwood said, “but I visit Anne every Friday. I’ll understand perfectly if you’d rather stay here, but you’re most welcome to come, and Anne would love to have you.”

  Caro was eager to see her cousin again, and especially to meet Anne’s husband and her two young children.

  “You’ll come with me, won’t you, John?” she asked him when they had a moment to speak privately.

  “Are you sure you want me to come?”

  Caro nodded. “Anne and I were close when we were girls. I’d love for her to meet you.”

  A strange look flitted across his face—half pleasure, half doubt. “Then I’d be happy to join you.”

  There were five in their party—Caro herself, Aunt Ella, Sophia, Ronnie and, of course, John. Whether because he was tired of sitting in a carriage, because he preferred the peace and quiet, or because he genuinely had no wish to crowd them, John accompanied the landau on his horse. Caro watched him out the window. He looked quite striking on Argos, hale and handsome in his riding clothes. The sight reminded her of riding pillion behind him as they’d left the hunting box, and how she’d huddled against his much larger body.

  The ladies chatted together, while Ronnie mostly stared admiringly at Sophia all the way to Strelley.

  “It’s nice to have you along, Sophia,” Aunt Ella remarked.

  “Don’t you usually go?” Caro asked her cousin in surprise.

  Sophia shook her head. “It’s always the same thing, nothing but a lot of silly fussing over Anne’s babies.”

  “Really, Sophia, you can’t always be the center of attention,” Aunt Ella said, looking annoyed.

  They reached the rectory shortly after noon. It was a large but unpretentious brick house across the road from the village church, a venerable old Norman structure with a square tower. As the carriage pulled up before the parsonage, the front door opened and Anne came hurrying out to greet them.

  “Caro!” she exclaimed, breaking into a grin as Ronnie handed Caro out of the carriage.

  Though it had been years since she’d last seen her cousin, Caro would have recognized Anne anywhere—more like her mother than her father in looks, with Aunt Ella’s animation and Uncle Geoff’s frank, forthright manner. “It’s so good to see you, Anne!”

  “I was about to say the same to you. You look wonderful.”

  “So do you.” Aunt Ella had hinted on the drive over that Anne was expecting again, but her condition barely showed.

  “Is this your husband?” Anne asked, looking at Ronnie. She had a vaguely puzzled air as she asked the question, her forehead puckering slightly—and no wonder, for Ronnie looked far too young to have been married for five years.

  Ronnie let out a laugh and held up his hands in denial. “Not me!”

  “He’s my brother-in-law, Mr. Ronald Welford.” John had dismounted, and as he came up to join them, Caro linked her arm through his. Whatever difficulties she might have with John, he made a fine first impression. “This is Welford. John, this is my cousin, Mrs....” Caro laughed. “Would you believe it? I can’t remember your married name.”

  “I’m not surprised, since you were out of the country when I married. It’s Mrs. Edge—Mrs. George Edge, actually, for my husband’s older brother Thomas is the squire here in Strelley.”

  John bowed smoothly. “A great pleasure, Mrs. Edge.”

  “My goodness, even Sophia made the trip,” Anne said with a tartness that suggested the sisters were not on the best of terms. “Do come in, all of you. We can have tea and bread pudding, and I’ll ask the children’s nurse to bring them down.” She smiled at her mother. “They have a little surprise for you, Mama.”

  Caro wondered what kind of surprise two infants of only eleven months could have for her aunt, but her curiosity was satisfied when the group had settled in the drawing room and the children’s nurse—a plump young woman with strawberry blond hair under her starched white cap—ushered in the twins, both babies clinging to her skirts.

  “Here they are,” Anne said, beaming. The children were in short coats and leading strings, and the only way to tell the boy from the girl was that one of them wore red shoes, and the other wore white shoes and a slender necklace of coral beads. “Mary, Georgie—show Grandmama your trick.”<
br />
  The nurse gently herded the children in Lady Fleetwood’s direction. Little Mary waddled forward, her arms held out before her in a balancing act. Georgie did his best to follow, but after two or three wobbly steps he tipped backward and sat down firmly on his backside.

  “My goodness!” Lady Fleetwood clasped her hands to her breast in grandmotherly raptures. “They’re walking on their own!”

  “Well, they’re learning,” Anne said with a laugh. “Mary is actually better at it than Georgie, as you can see, though their papa insists Georgie is only holding back out of pure gallantry.”

  “Oh, Anne, they’re beautiful,” Caro said. “You must be very proud.”

  Mary toddled up to Anne and held out her arms to be picked up. Anne obliged her, sitting the little girl on her lap. “I am. And I don’t know if Mama let on, but they may have a brother or sister joining them sometime around Eastertide.”

  “Perhaps both,” Lady Fleetwood said. “Caro warned you that twins run in her family, I suppose, Lord Welford?”

  A flash of surprise crossed John’s face, but he answered evenly, “I believe she mentioned something to that effect.”

  Little Georgie had crawled across the Turkey carpet to the sofa, arriving beside Caro. He pulled himself into a standing position and stared up at her.

  She smiled at him. “Hullo, Georgie.” She covered her eyes, then pulled her hands quickly away. “Boo!”

  The little boy laughed.

  Though Caro had lived quietly at Halewick, she hadn’t been a prisoner, and she’d attended church on Sunday, called on Welford’s tenants and mixed in a limited way with her neighbors. Often in the first months of her banishment, she’d caught those around her giving her strangely measuring looks. It had taken her weeks to realize they were wondering if she was in a delicate condition, and if that was the reason Welford had left her behind when he’d gone off to the Continent.

  She often wondered what would have happened if she had been increasing. Would Welford have sent for her to join him? Come home to Halewick to see her? She liked to imagine a baby would have softened his attitude toward her a little, but for all she knew a child would’ve been just one more person in John’s life for him to ignore.