His Rebel Bride

by Helen Dickson

  Gazing at the people filling Taunton’s streets the following morning, Catherine likened it to a holiday crowd buoyed up with excessive optimism and merriment. It was thickest around in the centre and around the taverns, and washed up against the castle walls. The crowd was made up mainly of Monmouth’s followers—an ill-assorted collection of troops, all occupations represented, their arms as diverse as their uniforms and in a similarly poor condition.

  They presented a bizarre spectacle. Some wore the red coats and white kersey breeches of the New Model Army, a sight not seen since Cromwell’s time, reminding one of glories past. Others wore purple coats faced with scarlet, which had been made in Holland for the rebellion, but most of the rebels wore sensible clothing typical of the Dissenting artisan class from which they sprang.

  Seated with Alice in the carriage behind Archie, Catherine had an excellent view of the scene, and she wondered how on earth she was going to find her horse in all this mayhem. She would go directly to the Duke himself, and lodge a complaint against the disgraceful treatment they had received at Saxton Court.

  The carriage made slow progress through the jostling crowd. Approaching the Castle Inn, where Monmouth’s officers could be heard roistering, some fortified with cider and spilling out onto the street, her eyes were drawn to a young man about to enter. She stiffened. No, it could not be. Her eyes must be playing tricks with her mind. She looked closer and her heart contracted. There could be no mistake. No one else she knew had hair that colour. Falling somewhere between red and gold, it glowed like a flame in the drab light. Clad in stout buff leather coat, belonging to an elite troop of Monmouth’s cavalry, it was Harry, and no phantom conjured up by a fevered imagination.

  Ignoring Alice’s protests, she was scrambling out of the carriage and shoving her way through the throng towards him. Harry turned on hearing her call his name. His eyes widened in recognition and warmth kindled in their depths, striking like a flaming arrow at her heart. She stared into his face, the one she knew by heart. It was the same, but different, having aged in the short time they had been apart. His eyes were the same—as blue as she remembered, but sad now, brooding and withdrawn. There was also a settled air of strength and purpose about him that had not been there before.

  Taking her hand, he drew her closer to the wall of the inn. ‘Catherine. Confound it! What the devil are you doing here?’

  ‘This is where I live, Harry. Saxton Court, my husband’s estate, is close by.’

  Harry’s mouth set in a grim line. ‘Of course. How remiss of me. I should have known. I would have thought your husband would be with you, guarding you against the rebel army.’

  ‘Marcus has gone to join his regiment in London,’ she hurried to explain. ‘The Royal Dragoons.’

  ‘Indeed? A troop of John Churchill’s own regiment. I am impressed. ’Tis a little ironic to think they are on their way with the regular troops to fight Monmouth, to reinforce the militia and destroy us. Originally the Royal Dragoons were Monmouth’s Horse under his own command in the service of France and later Tangier—crack troops who can fight equally as well on foot or on horseback. We will fight hard before we admit defeat. Are you in Taunton unescorted?’

  ‘Alice came with me. I have come to look for my horse. Last night some of the rebels came to the house to seize arms. Not only did they ransack the house, taking with them what weapons they could find and certain items of value, but the horses, too. To steal arms is one thing, but to take the horses…’

  ‘Battles are won by cavalry and guns, Catherine, and Monmouth’s army is deficient in both. We have sufficient muskets to arm a quarter of the infantry—the rest of the men will have to fend for themselves. A third of an army usually consists of mounted men. Monmouth’s army falls short of this, reflecting the fact that not many real countrymen have joined him. Weavers and shoemakers cannot afford a horse. It was fortunate that I was with the Duke when he landed and managed to procure a horse quickly.’

  ‘I knew you would be with Monmouth, Harry, but I never thought to see you.’

  Harry’s expression softened once more. ‘I’m glad we’ve met. I keep thinking back to that last night we were together at The Hague. You were so magnificent—when you cared.’

  ‘Oh, Harry, please don’t. I’ve always cared for you, you know that.’

  ‘You were beautiful, so proud.’ His eyes hardened. ‘What you did hurt me deeply. Didn’t you think I deserved an explanation? If you had told me, maybe I could have accepted it.’ She stared at him and seemed confused, which heightened his anger. ‘How do you think I felt?’

  ‘Harry—I am so, so sorry. The last thing I wanted was to cause you pain. I feel dreadful about what I’ve done to you.’

  ‘You said you had no choice. How did you come to marry Reresby, Catherine?’

  ‘It was decided between my father and Marcus,’ she said, lowering her head, too humiliated to tell Harry the sordid details. ‘It happened. There was nothing I could do. It’s no use going over it now. It’s past.’

  ‘I know marriages in eminent families are made for many reasons—financial or political, or to fuse two families together to make them more powerful. I had hoped that between us it would be different.’

  ‘I always thought it would be. I hoped…Children are brought up to do their duty with no room for sentiment—but I did fight it, Harry. I swear I did.’

  ‘Would you come away with me, Catherine, if I asked you to?’

  She stared at him hard. ‘Leave Marcus? No. You know I cannot.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Can you tell me why?’

  ‘I do not know. Something in me—in Marcus—prevents me.’

  ‘I see. You will remain with him?’

  ‘I must. If I am to be content in the future, I have to commit myself to him and our lives together. Besides, adultery is a sin so dreadful that I would hate myself.’

  ‘And hate me?’ His voice was low.

  Catherine stared at him, her heart turning over with pity for him. ‘Hate you? I could never hate you—my dearest friend.’

  Harry’s lips twisted with scorn. ‘Friend? Is that all I am to you now?’

  ‘It is a large word, Harry. Please don’t torture me with these questions.’

  He drew back. ‘Will he give you up?’

  ‘No. I—I do not take my vows lightly. I am firmly bound by my word.’

  ‘You thought little of your vows when you went with me to The Hague,’ Harry reminded her harshly.

  ‘I make no excuses for the way I behaved. I was foolish—I did not know Marcus then.’

  ‘I always thought that you and I were meant for each other. I loved you and you led me to believe you loved me.’

  ‘I do love you, Harry. You have always known that.’

  ‘But not as much as you used to. You’ve changed, Catherine. I can see it in your eyes when you look at me. Are you in love with your husband?’

  ‘I—I can’t explain what I feel,’ she said, though she dared not look at him. She was unable to push away the memory of that moment by the lake, before Marcus had gone away, when he had told her he wanted to make her happy and asked her if there was a future for them together—when he had stared down into her eyes and her emotions had raged a terrible war. ‘Since he went away I think of him a great deal—and I would certainly have been glad of his presence last night to deal with the rebels.’

  ‘Does he treat you well? Is—is he…?’

  She raised her eyes to his. ‘Marcus is good to me,’ she answered softly. ‘He demands his own way in most things, but he does not ill treat me. I have everything I need. I am not unhappy.’

  ‘He is a very fortunate man.’

  His voice was soft, and those blue eyes holding Catherine’s, still full of yesterdays, conveyed far more than words.

  ‘How I would like to seem proud and arrogant and indifferent, to show you I don’t give a damn that you are married to someone else, that you don’t m
ean a thing to me. But I’m not that good an actor.’

  Harry’s pain almost overwhelmed her and she moved towards him to comfort him, but stepped back again, aware that she must not. Her heart ached with the desolation of it and with her loss, the loss of Harry and her girlhood dream. Her love had grown up, leaving him behind, and there could be no room for any other man in her life but her husband. Her eyes shone with tears, but she remained composed.

  ‘You will get over me, Harry. You will. You must not think of me now, and when this is over make a new life for yourself. But for the time being Monmouth needs you and you have a rebellion to fight. I know how close the Protestant cause is to your heart, and I know you will prove your worth.’

  Catherine saw his expression relax a little and his eyes became animated, which she knew had nothing to do with her. He had withdrawn from the intimacy of moments earlier. With a single-mindedness she was glad to see, she realised that his thoughts were again upon his purpose in coming to England.

  He smiled. ‘You are right, Catherine,’ he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips. ‘As always. Now, tell me about this horse you’re looking for. If I come across it, I promise to see it gets back to you.’

  From inside the Castle Inn Mr Fenton peered out of a window, his eyes fixed on Lady Reresby and Harry Stapleton. The anger he felt over his last encounter with her ladyship still smouldered inside him. Even the raid he had instigated on Saxton Court by whispering in Becket’s ear about the arms kept inside the house, the home of a King’s man, had not diminished it.

  Damn the bitch! he thought. Damn her for her arrogance and for making him look a fool. He had almost revealed overmuch of his association with her father there and then that day in the wood—thank God an inborn caution had stopped him from saying more. Because of his close connection with her father, Henry Barrington—a man he’d despised despite being of the same political bent—he knew that it had been intended that Catherine would wed Harry Stapleton, and now, seeing them together and the intimacy that still existed between the two of them, he would not restrain the impulse to drag her indiscretion into the clear light of day when he next saw her husband.

  After three days in Taunton spent in pointless ceremonies—three days during which the royal reinforcements marched fifty miles closer to the West Country—the Duke of Monmouth left Taunton, deciding to maintain the momentum of rebellion by marching on towards Bristol.

  Fearing another raid on the house, Catherine was glad that they had moved on. Marcus had been away from Saxton Court for four weeks. She thought of what Harry had said, that Marcus might have been sent to the West Country with John Churchill. She prayed this would be so. In the wake of the rebels’ raid on the house and her encounter with Harry—and Mr Fenton’s long absences from the estate, which made her wonder if he was about to desert like the rest of the men—she felt perilously close to tears.

  She tried to convince herself that this aching misery she felt was merely because of all that had happened, but her lonely dejection sprang from something much deeper. She was missing Marcus. She thought of him often, and wondered how he was faring, wherever he happened to be. He had stressed the danger of his task, and that it involved risks.

  What did she know about him, really? He had started out as her enemy, and had turned out to be a man of honour and a nobleman, different to any she had known before. She knew that his mother had died when he was ten years old, and that his father had been murdered—and that her own father had played a major part in his death.

  She knew so little about her husband, and yet he seemed to have become important to her. Was she about to surrender to this battle of wills that had raged between them from the moment they had set eyes on each other? When he returned would it be a beginning for them? Would she be willing to become a proper wife to him, to share his bed? Surprised at the tears that misted her eyes, she blinked them back and prepared to endure another evening alone.

  When Marcus did unexpectedly arrive, he surprised her by his sudden appearance in the small parlour. She was seated at the table about to eat when he walked in. Her heart gave a traitorous leap at the sight of him and she found herself drawn by an irresistible impulse to where he stood. He was bareheaded, and his dark hair was rough and tousled. The features were the same, a little more sharply defined, perhaps, and he held his head in just the same old arrogant way. Looking slightly travel weary, he had hooked his leather jerkin over his shoulder, for the evening was warm.

  ‘Very cosy,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  ‘Marcus!’ Catherine stood up. The awareness of his presence in the candlelit room was enough to unravel her composure. Why hadn’t he sent word for her to expect him, so that she would have been prepared? ‘This is a surprise. Welcome home.’

  Tossing his jerkin into a chair, he moved further into the room, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘Am I truly welcome, Catherine?’ he asked.

  ‘But of course,’ she replied evenly, knowing the answer he wanted, yet giving him a different one. ‘Why would you not be, in your own home? We—we weren’t expecting you.’

  ‘I’m here with Lord Churchill—although I’ve resigned my post with the Dragoons. Until this business with Monmouth is settled I’m still with the army, and because I’m from these parts I’ve been sent at the head of a small patrol to reconnoitre the area. I was concerned as to how you fare here at Saxton Court—being so close to the rebel army.’ He regarded her for a long moment. ‘But first, how are you, Catherine?’

  The way he was looking at her brought a rush of heat to Catherine’s cheeks, and suddenly she was unable to hold his appraising stare. ‘I—I am well.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you by arriving unexpectedly. I hope you’re not lonely in the house all by yourself.’

  ‘You didn’t frighten me. Not really,’ she assured him. She felt safe again, now he was home. ‘And I’m not lonely. This house is so big—there’s so much going on all the time, so many noises—so many echoes.’ She lowered her eyes in self-conscious confusion and finally in a rush of an apology, she added, ‘I’m glad you’re home, even if it is just for a short time. But—you must be hungry. As you can see, there isn’t enough food for two, so I’ll go and instruct one of the servants to have some extra brought in.’

  She made a move towards the door, but he reached out and gently took her arm. ‘There’s no need. I’ve already done so.’ Marcus was hungry, and the thought of dining with his wife in the intimate confines of this small parlour held some appeal.

  Catherine gazed at the hand on her arm. There was something so masculine in the strength of that hand that her heartbeat quickened. He released her and she looked quickly away. There were times when Marcus was too attractive for her peace of mind.

  Choosing a comfortable seat near the hearth, Marcus stretched his long booted legs out in front of him. He looked at Catherine, at the tumbling mass of black hair. Beneath its fullness, dark-fringed green eyes glowed with their own light, the colour in their depths changing like a newly hewn gemstone.

  He found himself much enamoured with this young wife of his, who had entered his life with reluctance. There was more woman in her than he had at first realised, and it was not the calculated femininity of all the other women he had known, but an easy, natural thing that would never fail to stir his ardour.

  He gestured to the chair opposite. ‘Come and sit down.’ When she was settled, he said, ‘Tell me what has been happening in my absence. According to Mrs Garfield, most of the labourers on the estate have gone to join Monmouth.’

  ‘Unfortunately that is so.’

  Marcus raised his brows in mock surprise. ‘Unfortunately? Knowing all too well where your sympathies lay, Catherine, I find that a strange word for you to use. Has something happened to change your opinion?’

  Catherine shifted uneasily. ‘I confess that I am confused. I don’t know what to think any more. I must apologise if you find anything amiss in the house. We
…had unwelcome visitors recently—some of Monmouth’s recruits. They ransacked the house in their search for weapons, emptying the gunroom and taking whatever else they found of use, along with a few valuables—I’ve compiled a list. They—they also took the horses, apart from half a dozen coach horses that were in the paddock at the time. I’m sorry, Marcus. There was nothing I could do to stop them.’

  Appalled, Marcus slowly rose from his chair. As she spoke a dark rage filled him that his wife should have been subjected to this. ‘Those damned rebels came here—forced entry into this house?’ Suddenly his look became anxious. ‘Did they hurt you, Catherine?’

  Catherine was touched by his concern for her safety—she could not recall Harry reacting in the same way when she had told him of the raid on Saxton Court. ‘No, I am perfectly well. In fact, I injured one of them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘With that old sword you keep hanging over the fireplace in the hall. One of the rebels abused one of the maids, and when she became hysterical the man leading them ordered someone to silence her. When he was about to do it himself I—I—’

  ‘Ran him through?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘Something like that. I had no time to take in the full enormity of my action or the danger to myself. It—it was quite dreadful. But I didn’t kill him,’ she was quick to explain.

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Madam Warrior,’ Marcus remarked, chuckling softly, full of admiration and not at all shocked by her actions. ‘That broadsword was a rusty old weapon and hasn’t been used for decades.’

  ‘It was needs must, Marcus. I’m no mouse to scurry for cover behind a curtain when trouble arrives. Women are more resourceful than men give us credit for. When threatened, any one of us will kill to defend family and home. I did not trouble myself to consider that the man might get blood poisoning. In fact, he was a bit of a coward really. When I thought the rebels would turn on me, he demanded to be taken to a physician right away, frightened by his own blood. Beneath all his bluster the man was a weak fool. May God help Monmouth if he has to depend on men such as that.’