by May Burnett
He sent Tsien to the ladies’ hotel with a fat purse for their use, as well as a note promising that he would wait on them the following morning.
As soon as Tsien was gone he wanted to call him back. What should he do with himself this evening, and would Emily and her sister fall into trouble without his escort? In one night in a respectable establishment, with their maid along, surely not.
What might have become of Sir Conrad Bolland? Had he received the lawyer’s message, that they would wait for him in Geneva? Was he already here?
That was one thing he could do, to take care of this cursed restlessness. He would enquire for Sir Conrad in the city’s principal hotels. It was a task any servant might accomplish as easily, but he was eager for something to do.
Accordingly Anthony wandered around Geneva in the cold autumn evening, talking to porters and concierges, leaving notes and drinking the occasional glass of mulled wine.
He was just thinking that more wine on an empty stomach was unwise, that he should order dinner – this place, the Hotel Marquand, looked decent enough – when a familiar voice cut across his attention.
“Wetherby! So you are here at last!”
It was his quarry, Sir Conrad, looking none the worse for wear.
“Bolland! I am very glad to see you safe and free.” The two clasped hands.
“What an adventure,” Sir Conrad said. “It goes to prove, I was right to decry foreign travel. Once I am home, nothing will make me leave England again.”
“Was it very bad? We heard only garbled accounts. Have you dined yet?”
“I was just about to order.”
They found a table. When the waiter approached, however, Anthony waved him away. He wanted to learn more.
“I was astonished to learn that you had escorted my cousins from Verona to Switzerland,” Sir Conrad said. “Surely there was no adequate reason for such a drastic measure? I am concerned at the harm to their reputations, if this should leak out.”
“Did you not speak to Mrs Bellairs before your departure from Verona?”
“I tried, but was told she was indisposed. And after that experience of prison, I was not inclined to linger.”
“They did not torture you, did they?” Surely his friend would show traces of mistreatment, were that the case. His confidence was undiminished.
“They threatened to do so, but of course I did not take them seriously. When I learned that they thought me a dangerous spy, it was clear they had got the wrong end of the stick, and would soon have to admit their mistake. As happened eventually. No need to hire that lawyer, though of course I shall refund whatever you paid him.”
Anthony waved that offer aside. “He did give you the message I left, and told you we were coming to Geneva?”
“Yes, and most inconvenient I found it. By taking ship I would be close to home by now. But of course I could not allow my cousins to be stranded here with a man who is not related to them.”
“You didn’t hear about my marriage to Emily?”
Sir Conrad stared. “You and Emily?”
“The Contessa insisted on a marriage between us, then and there, before she would allow the girls to leave. And leave they must, because those same officers who suspected you of espionage were convinced that if you proved innocent, the girls were their quarry.”
Sir Conrad shook his head. “Impossible. Nobody could be that foolish. They are sweet innocent girls and no sane man would ever suspect them of spying. Why, they would not have the first idea how to go about it.”
His conviction rang so deep that Anthony decided not to disillusion him at that moment, – the confession would best come from Margaret – and signalled to the waiter that they were ready to order dinner.
“So we are cousins now?” Sir Conrad asked. “Capital!”
Chapter 18
Time and distance change people, no matter how you hope for the contrary.
Maxims for Young Gentlewomen, Vol. 2, by a Lady (1824)
“We shall be cousins by marriage tomorrow, if we are not now,” Anthony explained to Sir Conrad after they had ordered. “The thing is, I have grave misgivings over the validity of a marriage between two British subjects and Protestants, celebrated by a Catholic priest in Italy, without banns. It might be valid in Italy – though even that seems doubtful – but it certainly will not do in England. So we decided to treat the thing as a betrothal for the time being, and repeat the ceremony here, with a Protestant pastor.”
“That makes sense,” the baronet conceded. “Where are my cousins now? I presume you left them in the care of some respectable female?”
“They are staying at the Hotel des Abeilles, with their maid. As Emily will be my wife so soon, and we only just arrived today, there was no chance to arrange a duenna. I am staying in yet another hotel myself.”
“Very irregular,” Conrad said, frowning. “Poor Margaret must have suffered from such a scrambling journey.”
Conrad had no idea just how scrambling, Anthony reflected as he poured wine into both glasses. And Margaret was not nearly as fragile as her cousin supposed. “They will be happy to see you here, safely delivered from durance vile. We had better send them a note right away. You may stand up with me and assure yourself that your Cousin Emily’s marriage is tight and legal. The more witnesses the better.”
Suiting action to words, he asked for paper and pen, and quickly wrote a short note to Emily.
“Would you like to add a note of your own?”
“Oh – um – no, if I shall see them tomorrow, that is hardly necessary.”
Anthony gestured to a hotel porter, who promised to deliver his message without delay.
When the man had departed with the folded paper, Conrad said, “I arrived four days ago. Where have you been all this time?”
“It is a long story. Margaret and Emily will tell you all about it.”
“Why didn’t my Aunt Miriam accompany my cousins? I fail to understand how she could let them travel with you, unchaperoned. Even if you married Emily, it was hardly fair to Margaret.”
“It was the original plan that Mrs Bellairs would also come with us. She slipped on the stairs and broke her leg just as we were about to leave. It was most unfortunate. Too bad you did not see her – we have been wondering how she is holding up.”
“Aunt Miriam broke her leg? I wish I had known, I would have insisted on seeing her before my departure. As it was, I thought she was merely in low spirits, as before.”
“She must be brought to England as soon as she is well enough. I shall take care of it.”
Conrad nodded distractedly.
“Did you meet the Contessa or her family when you tried to take leave of your aunt?”
“I sent my card, but they were not at home to me. Maybe they wanted nothing to do with a man just released from arrest,” Conrad said, with a trace of bitterness. “That a Bolland of Melchin Manor, the head of our family, should be imprisoned and questioned! Unheard of!”
“Here, let’s drink to your liberty and safe return,” Anthony offered, to distract his young companion from his anger. They drank their toast.
Conrad asked, “So Margaret will travel to England with Emily and you?”
“Unless you have a better suggestion? We can talk it over tomorrow, the four of us.”
The baronet nodded. “Do you remember how I compared my feelings for Margaret to a fever, when we were in Verona?”
Ah. Maybe prison and separation had dampened the young man’s ardour. It would not be the first time that happened. “Do I understand that your fever has cooled down? They have a habit of doing so, if they are not fatal.”
“I don’t know – somehow the beautiful and terrible experiences of Verona are all jumbled together in my mind. I have been hoping that it would be easier to sort them out once I saw Margaret again.”
“I see.”
“I am not superstitious, but in that prison it occurred to me that fate might be holding me back from my headlong pas
sion for a reason. Yet I thought of Margaret every hour. The resulting doubt has not been pleasant.”
Anthony drank some more wine. What was there to say?
Conrad did not further belabour the subject. “Tomorrow you will be married, you said?”
“If at all possible. It looks like a very busy day, as I was also planning to look at houses. But since we no longer have to wait for you, that may not be necessary after all. I shall have to see what Emily prefers.”
“My own strong preference is to return to England without additional delay,” Conrad confided as the waiter withdrew the empty consommé plate and served him cutlets with creamed mushrooms and greens. “I am thoroughly homesick, and don’t mind who knows it.”
***
In the elegant sitting room of her suite in the Hotel des Abeilles, Emily re-read Anthony’s message that he would not see them again until the morrow. It was absurd to feel depressed about spending a few hours away from him, after living in each other’s pockets for weeks on end.
He had promised to organise their Protestant wedding tomorrow if at all possible. The second of three weddings, but the most important from a legal perspective. After tomorrow, she would be his wife in truth. She could meet his friends and relatives with her head held high. They could also share those marital intimacies of which so far she had only heard hints and whispers.
She was not worried too much about that part; Anthony would show her how to go on. He had said he would try to make her enjoy the activities of the marriage bed. The word he had used, activities, was odd. It sounded almost like work. But no point puzzling over it now, she would find out soon enough.
No, her worries had a quite different focus. How soon would Anthony tire of his young and inexperienced wife? Though Emily had avoided asking for details, afraid of what she would learn, it was clear that he moved in the very first circles of society, among a fashionable and sophisticated crowd. By all accounts, aristocrats tended to be jaded and amoral. Maybe he was the exception that proved the rule, but even before that long journey to the mysterious East, Anthony had undoubtedly been a man of the world. As rich and good-looking as he was, women would have been chasing him from an early age. They probably would not stop after he was married, at least the less respectable kind.
It would not be easy to keep the interest of any man in such an environment, against the competition of wily and unscrupulous seductresses.
Would Emily be up to that challenge? She would study her husband’s interests and tastes, and hope for the best.
Margaret was not helpful when she voiced her concerns.
“I doubt that your Anthony will be as sought-after as all that, especially once he is securely wedded to you,” she said dismissively. “Don’t borrow trouble. By all means use his money to dress elegantly – if you get him to spend his blunt on gowns and jewels for you, he won’t have any left over for other women.”
Emily remembered that ballroom for four hundred. It sounded like her soon-to-be husband was a veritable Croesus. Could she have misunderstood him? Surely not. Yet it seemed equally unlikely that a well-born young man that rich would even now be preparing to marry her, the daughter of the disgraced and bankrupt Rupert Bellairs. Her parents’ creditors in England had obtained only pennies in the pound of what they were owed. Would they seek to dun her, or Anthony, when she returned to London? Dreadful thought… maybe she ought to warn Anthony before it was too late.
But it was already too late, wasn’t it? After that week-long journey in his company, she would be ruined if the marriage was not formalized. She had to hope that he would be able to deal as competently with their rapacious creditors, as he had dealt with the details of their ignominious flight from Verona.
“You look like a week of Fridays,” Margaret commented. “Not at all like a happy bride. Let us order a hearty meal here in our rooms, and discuss what you are going to wear to the wedding tomorrow. Even if it is private, you will want to appear to advantage.”
“Signora Tarcassi is even now scouring Geneva for a suitable dress,” Emily said. “If nothing better is to be found at such short notice, I shall use the green one we bought last week, or the blue one from Verona, if the ceremony should be in the evening. I don’t really care, as Anthony promised me another wedding in the village church at Bankington, when we are back in England. That is where I always dreamed of being married, and for that occasion I shall buy the prettiest dress in London.”
“Bankington?” Margaret stared. “Is that wise? To see all our neighbours again? We still owe the butcher and the coal merchant, if I remember rightly.”
“Anthony can deal with all that.” Emily hoped he would not mind too much. “He told me I would receive generous pin money, so I can pay them myself if necessary.”
A messenger at their door delivered another note from Anthony, announcing that he had found their cousin in the Hotel Marquand, and that Sir Conrad would call on them on the morrow.
“P.S. He did not meet your mother before he left Verona,” she read aloud. “Can that mean he is still unaware of the reason for our flight?”
“Wetherby will tell him all about it, right now,” Margaret said, dejected. “Our cousin will be very shocked. I would not be surprised if he washed his hands of us, and never calls tomorrow at all.”
“I am not so sure Anthony will tell him,” Emily said thoughtfully, “he will feel that you ought to do that yourself.”
“Why should I? The least said the soonest mended. I do not see why Sir Conrad ever need learn what drove us from Verona.”
“But if not for that danger, why would we have left with Anthony so suddenly, and travelled with him in such a shocking fashion? Conrad will have to be told; it makes no sense otherwise, and sooner or later he will talk to our mother and find out.”
“Mother will not mention anything that redounds to our disadvantage, if I can warn her first.”
“Everyone in Verona will know of the manhunt after us by now. There is no way it can be kept secret, Margaret.”
“We’ll see about that. Verona is a good distance from England. As we do not plan to return there, I suggest leaving all that gossip behind, and deny everything if asked. It was just a ridiculous misunderstanding by the Austrian authorities. Since that is true of their arresting Conrad, it will sound true also as far as we are concerned. Do we look like dangerous spies?” Margaret made a small pirouette in front of the hotel’s gilt-framed mirror. “Nobody who sees us could possibly suspect something so unlikely and absurd.”
“If Anthony has said nothing to Conrad, I shall not speak of it, unless I have no choice,” Emily said reluctantly. “But mark my words, you are making a mistake. The best thing would be to shed a few pretty tears and confess everything. Secrets tend to come out at the worst possible time.”
“Not always,” Margaret maintained.
Chapter 19
Do not place all your hopes on any one person.
Maxims for Young Gentlewomen, Vol. 2, by a Lady (1824)
“Dear cousins, I am happy to see you again here in Switzerland.”
Sir Conrad could not have suffered much from his incarceration; he was essentially unchanged from the assertive young man Emily remembered. His blond locks were carefully brushed, and his clothes were still rather more fashionable than theirs.
“And we are very happy to see you free and healthy,” Margaret replied with a smile. “It has not been long since we last saw you at the ball in Verona, but so much has happened, it seems like a different lifetime. Won’t you sit, Cousin?”
They sat, all three of them, looking at one another.
Sir Conrad cleared his throat. “First of all, my best wishes on your wedding to my friend Wetherby, Emily – though he is more to be felicitated, in truth. I shall have the honour to accompany you to the Church later today. It is not far.”
“Thank you,” Emily said. “Anthony sent a note that the ceremony is scheduled at half-past four this afternoon. With you and Margaret, at l
east there will be two family members by my side.”
“It is still not what I would prefer, for my own wedding. Unless I marry in England, I would not feel truly wed. I am looking forward to a happy family life in due course, when I am in my familiar milieu once more.” Was he looking at Margaret as he spoke? If so, it was sideways, and very discreetly.
“For that very reason we are planning another ceremony in our home parish of Bankington,” Emily explained. “But it will be much more convenient and respectable to travel already as a married couple.”
“I quite understand. What a pity that your mother cannot be present, though! For any parent, the marriage of her daughter must be an occasion never to be forgotten, the culmination of many years of care and preparation. Little wonder that most brides’ mothers cry on that occasion.”
Her cousin was not the most tactful young man in the world. Emily did not reply.
“Tell us more about your adventures, Sir Conrad,” Margaret invited. “We were most concerned about your fate. How was such a misunderstanding possible? Nobody who knows you even a little would ever take you for a daring spy.”
“No, of course not, even those fool Austrians realised that eventually. I told them right away they had made a mistake. Their ambassador in London will hear of that blunder, depend on it. I intend to lodge a complaint with our government the moment I am returned home. I have friends in parliament who will ask questions in the Commons, how our government plans to respond to such an outrage perpetrated upon a harmless traveller.”
“I see,” Margaret said. “Let us hope they can discomfit the Austrian authorities in some way. But the main thing is that you are now free and from what I can see, none the worse for your misadventure.”
