I recalled Simon’s crude offer, remembered the nightmare I’d experienced in his hovel years before, and knew I could not take up the profession of a harlot. I must find some other way to survive, no matter how bold or unscrupulous, my muddled mind decided.
****
“I didn’t know you were his girl until Barret mentioned who you were waiting for,” my companion said. “Darcy worked in my father’s shipyards. That was how we came to meet.”
He’d taken me to a fodder storage barn on the edge of the village, tied the horse in a corner, lighted a lantern on a bare place on the earthen floor, and seated me beside him in a mound of sweet-smelling hay. Then he drew a flask of rum from an inner pocket of his coat and offered it to me.
I barely hesitated. I’d never drunk liquor, but I’d heard it numbed the senses, and I needed anything that would help quell my pain and despair. The first drink burned, and I choked. Colin patted my back solicitously.
“Sip, don’t gulp,” he advised, and the mouthfuls that followed slid down more easily.
“One day while I was practicing at the piano, Darcy came to the house on an errand,” Colin continued his story. “When I looked up and saw him, I was startled. Cap in hand, his shirt and breeches dirty and soaked with sweat, he was listening with rapt attention at the drawing room door. Embarrassed at having been noticed, he turned to go back to the entry, where all such messengers were told to wait. I stopped him. I asked him if he’d enjoyed the selection.
“ ‘Handel could move Satan to repentance with his sacred music,’ he astonished me by replying. I’d never known any of my father’s laborers to have a knowledge of classical music. We fell into conversation. By the time my father came to receive the message my new friend had brought, I’d learned a good deal about Darcy Pod, including his father’s achievements and misadventures, his life in the mines, his own love of composing poetry and…you.”
He glanced over at me, a sad ghost of a smile touching his lips.
“Please, go on.” I wanted to learn all I could about Darcy, about what had driven him to that awful decision.
“We soon became boon companions. He composed lyrics for several of the pieces I’ve written, and I spent many evenings at his cabin as I helped him build it for you.” Colin paused and took a drink from the flask before continuing.
“He seldom came to my home. Father does not approve of my socializing with his workers. Whenever he was away on business, I’d invite Darcy up to the house. I’d play the piano while he sang the words he’d written to accompany my scores. It was the best time of my life.” He handed the flask to me as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s damnably hot in here,” he muttered, pulling out a linen handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “May I remove my coat and vest?”
“Of course.” I slipped off my cloak and opened the top buttons of my woolen gown. “I’m uncomfortably warm, too.”
“You’re a very nice young lady.” His words slurred as he threw aside his outerwear. “Darcy was fortunate to have known you. I didn’t realize who you were today when I went to fetch Barret, or I would have seen to your needs immediately. It was only when we were dismounting before my father’s house that Barret chanced to mention the young lady whose fiancé with the unusual name of Pod had been left waiting on the pier. I knew what I had to do.” He paused and looked beyond me, then continued, “As soon as I could escape from the meeting with my father and Barret—I was ordered to attend and, as you’ll learn, one does not disobey Abraham Douglas—I planned to return for you.”
“That was kind of you.”
“But for you the time must have seemed interminable,” he said. “And I could have been here much sooner, but as I was about to leave the house, my courage failed. I couldn’t imagine how I would tell you about Darcy’s death. As a result of my cowardliness, I took a flask of rum from my father’s liquor cabinet and went to my room.” He shook his head in disbelief at what he’d done.
“It’s all right,” I told him gently. “You’re not responsible for me.”
“As Darcy’s best friend, I most definitely am,” he answered solemnly. “But it was only after I’d finished one pint and a goodly part of another that I found the strength to do my duty. Our fledgling community is not a safe place for a lady, especially a beautiful one such as yourself, to be abroad alone at night.”
“Thank you.” A sensation of relaxation began to slide over me. I took another swallow from the flask. “Now you really should be going home. Your family will be missing you.”
“And leave you alone? Certainly not!”
His eyes were heavy-lidded as he took the flask from my hand and raised it unsteadily to his lips. Rum dribbled down his white shirtfront, but he appeared not to notice.
“But you must,” I said. “You can’t spend the entire night here with me. I’m grateful for what you’ve done, but now you must return to your family. I’ll spend the night in this barn, and in the morning…”
“Don’t be absurd!” He pulled himself to his feet and looked down at me as indignantly as his inebriated state would allow. “I won’t desert you!”
“You must,” I repeated. “Unless, of course, you plan to elope with me in Darcy’s stead,” I finished facetiously.
“Of course!” He seized my hand. “That’s the answer. We’ll get married! You need a husband and, Lord knows, my father is pushing me to take a wife. Come, we’ll go to Reverend Prescott and demand he marry us at once.” He tried to pull me to my feet, but I held back.
“I was jesting,” I protested, my tongue thick from drink. “You barely know me… It would be madness…”
“Miss Reynolds… Starr,” he said, dropping on one knee before me. “You need a husband and I need a wife. It’s a perfect solution, don’t you see?”
Through a haze of pain, fear, grief, and rum, I saw before me a handsome, probably wealthy young man who was proposing a way out of my miserable circumstances. I squared my shoulders and looked into the earnest face of the boy kneeling before me.
“Very well, Colin Douglas,” I said. “We’ll be married.”
“Good, good.” He led me to his waiting horse, hoisted me into the saddle, swung up behind me, and we were off at a trot to make our vows.
****
Reverend Prescott, the clergyman I’d seen on the pier, married us an hour later. At first, when Colin had aroused him and his gray-haired, motherly little wife from their bed in the small hours after midnight, he’d been reluctant to go along with our scheme.
“Mr. Douglas, are you quite sure?” he asked, blinking behind his spectacles, his nightshirt hanging to his heels, his tasseled cap askew on his balding head. “This is very sudden, and you’ve been…ah…drinking.”
“Reverend Prescott, must I remind you my father is the chief contributor to your church?” Colin asked, his arm about my waist. “”He wouldn’t be pleased to learn you refused a small favor to a member of his family.”
The little man hesitated only a moment longer.
“Very well,” he said. “But, mind you both, this ceremony will bind you legally and morally for life. Only death can end it.”
“We understand,” Colin said. “And we agree.”
As we stood before the clergyman, I saw Mary Constable, who’d been summoned from her bed to act as a witness, staring at me, contempt mirrored in her swollen, red-eyed face. What would she do when she learned the man I was marrying was not the same one I’d crossed the Atlantic to espouse but a sudden, fortuitous substitute? Would she feel sufficiently vindictive to tell my soon-to-be husband about my voyage in Barret Madison’s cabin? Distracted by the possibility, I nearly failed to reply “I will” at the crucial point in the ceremony.
She didn’t. In what seemed a few short minutes, the ceremony was complete. Colin kissed me on the cheek, thanked the nervous little clergyman, his wife, and Mary for their help, and, catching my hand in his, drew me once more outside. In less than an hour I’d been proposed to and marri
ed.
****
His home was called Peacock House, my new husband informed me as he turned the horse toward the dark silhouette of the mansion on the hill. His father had named it after the proud, showy birds he allowed to roam the grounds in summer. Too full of rum to really listen or worry about the reception I would receive in my new home, I could only think of it as a refuge, a haven from my dire circumstances. Leaning back against my husband’s hard chest, I let all serious considerations slide away into the sultry night.
We entered the stable furtively. I slumped into a mound of sweet hay to wait while Colin unsaddled the gelding and put him into his stall for what remained of the night. Then he joined me, and together we finished a second flask of rum he’d hidden in the barn.
“Now we must go to bed,” he slurred, staggering to his feet.
I reached for his proffered hand, missed, and tumbled to my knees in front of him. Instantly he was kneeling beside me, his expression one of deep concern.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” I murmured. “But I think you will have to help me to my feet.”
He did as I requested. Then, each with an arm about the other’s waist, we started toward the big, dark silhouette that was to be my home.
After Colin had eased open the huge front door, we crossed a vast, tiled foyer that echoed with our booted footfalls in spite of our efforts to be quiet. We climbed a great spiral staircase to the second floor, but because of the darkness and my state of inebriation, I noticed few details of the mansion’s interior.
“My room,” Colin whispered, pausing at a closed door halfway along a wide, upper-story corridor. “Our room now.”
Inside, he crossed to a lamp burning low on a bedside table and turned up its flame. Standing just inside the door where he’d left me, I stared about the big, elegant bedchamber.
A huge, high-posted bed covered with a maroon velvet spread dominated a room furnished with gleaming mahogany pieces adorned with shining brass hinges and pulls. My rum-dulled mind did not further scrutinize the place but turned its attention to Colin.
My husband was throwing his vest and coat across the bed, tearing off his cravat, and opening his white linen shirt. In two strides, he was at the window, brushing aside heavy dark red draperies to reveal delicate lace undercurtains. With an impatient push, he shoved up the sash to let in the pre-dawn, dew-tinged freshness.
“Lord, it’s hot in here,” he muttered, looking out into the night and pulling off his shirt.
His bared shoulders were broad and rippling with muscles. When he turned back to me, he caught me staring at him.
“Oh, God!” he muttered, looking about for his discarded shirt. “I wasn’t thinking. Excuse me…please.”
“It’s all right,” I said feeling a flush spreading across my cheeks. I lowered my gaze to the carpet beneath my boots. “I’m your wife.”
“Yes,” he said. He stopped looking for his shirt and came to stand before me. “It isn’t wrong, is it?”
I shook my head. My lowered eyes saw his hand go to the belt buckle at his slim waist and open it with a single abrupt jerk. The next instant he stood before me clad only in skintight undertrousers.
“Starr,” he said, his voice shaking.
“Yes.” I exhaled and began to unbutton my woolen gown. I was a married woman and this was my wedding night. I had a duty to accept.
My dress fell to the floor, and I stood before him in my mended chemise. Slowly I raised my gaze to my husband’s face.
It was a pale mask of nervous tension.
When he put out a hand to touch my cheek, I felt the quiver in his fingers. Carefully I moved into his arms, against his rock-hard chest.
“Starr,” he whispered, and lowered his head as if to kiss me. The reek of rum on his breath jerked the memory of the night at the overseer’s hovel over me. Panicked I wrenched away and rushed to cower by a bedpost.
“Starr, I’m sorry!” His voice was full of compassion. “That was too sudden. Forgive me. Let me put you to bed. Tomorrow we’ll talk and get to know each other. I won’t force you into intimacy, I promise.”
I looked up at him and saw sincerity in his troubled expression. I could trust this man. I controlled myself and allowed him to take my hand and lead me to the side of the big bed. There he threw back the covers and gestured to the spotless white linen exposed.
“Rest, my sweet wife.” He touched my cheek with his fingertips.
“Yes.” I sighed.
Exhausted and inebriated, I dropped into his bed. And fell asleep.
Chapter Four
“Colin, wake up! Who is this you’ve taken to your bed in my house? Speak up, boy!”
I awoke to find a tirade breaking over me. A towering, barrel-chested man about sixty years of age was shaking Colin and roaring. Outraged and demanding, he was centering his attention on my husband; apparently I was only the catalyst to the situation.
As I attempted to sit up, my head pounded. I fell back, cowering behind Colin’s broad, bare shoulders. He came awake and struggled up on one elbow to face the angry stranger. Wearing impeccable business attire, his receding gray hair the color of his sharp, cold eyes, the stranger had long, thick sidewhiskers and a ruddy complexion.
“What is the meaning of this, sir?” the big man bellowed. “Have you so degenerated as to feel it permissible to bring a whore into my house for your pleasure?”
“She’s not a whore, Father.” Colin dragged himself to a sitting position but kept the covers to his waist. “She’s…” He hesitated and looked down at me a bit incredulously. “She’s my wife.” He rubbed his forehead as if trying to clear confusion from his mind. “Reverend Prescott married us last night.”
“Married you!” The man he’d addressed as Father jerked backward as though struck. “Colin, are you saying this young woman and you spent the night together in your bed as husband and wife?” I was astonished to hear amazed pleasure entering his tone.
“Papa, please!” Colin flushed. “Starr is my legal wife.”
“All right, son.” He reached out a beefy hand and slapped Colin on the shoulder. “You and your…bride get dressed and come down to breakfast. We can talk later, while she rests. I’m sure it’s been an exhausting night for her.”
“Papa!”
“Very well, my boy.” He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll go.” He patted Colin on the shoulder and smiled down at him. “I’ll expect you at the table in half an hour, but if it takes longer, I’ll understand.”
Smiling smugly, he turned and went to the door. He paused at the threshold and glanced back at my husband.
“I’m proud of you, my boy,” he said gently. “Very proud.”
I was startled to see a mist of tears in his eyes. Closing the door softly after him, he left. I looked up at Colin and saw he was staring after his father, his eyes also moist.
“Colin?” I touched his arm.
“I’ve deceived him again,” he muttered.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry, Starr.” He ran a hand through his tangled blond curls. “It’s nothing you need concern yourself about. Let me deal with my father.”
He slid his feet out of bed and started to rise, but fell back to sit on its edge.
“Ohhh,” he moaned, grasping his head in both hands. “That cursed rum…”
He still wore his undertrousers.
With an effort, I pulled myself to a sitting position and felt again that painful hammering in my own head. Colin turned to me as I grimaced.
“You’re suffering from our excesses, too,” he said. “I’ll get you a cold compress.”
He eased himself from the bed and went into the adjoining dressing room. Through the door which he left open, I saw a copper tub and a washstand with a mirror, shaving equipment, and hairbrushes. Neatly folded snow-white towels were piled on a shelf against one wall. Colin dipped one of these into a basin of water, wrung it, and returned to me.<
br />
“Lie back,” he said, pushing me gently down on the pillows. He applied the cool towel to my burning forehead. I flinched but almost immediately felt relief.
“Rest.” He touched my cheek with his fingertips. “I’ll excuse you from breakfast and have a tray sent.”
“No, Colin.” I sat upright to protest his words. “I must put in an appearance. I must meet your family before I have time to imagine their responses to your sudden bride and lose my courage.”
“Very well,” he said. “If you insist. But rest while I shave. As my father said, he’ll understand if we’re late.”
The last sentence carried sardonic bitterness out of character for the man my young husband had so far shown himself to be.
“He was only assuming we’d had a normal wedding night,” I said. “He couldn’t know you married me out of compassion, that there was nothing more between us.”
“He never understands anything I do.” Colin arose and strode into the dressing room.
He shut the door after him, and shortly I heard the sounds of water. I assumed he began to wash and shave. From the lawn below, through the window Colin had left open all night, came the sudden, harsh cries of the peacocks he’d mentioned. They belonged here, I thought. They were like the master of this house: flamboyant, colorful, demanding, and loud.
I leaned back on the pillows, closed my eyes, and tried to relax. What would Colin’s family say when they saw me in my shabby dress and work boots? My stomach, ill from the rum and apprehension, roiled.
My thoughts were cut short as Colin returned to the bedroom. Blood streamed from between the fingers of his left hand which he held clasped over his right forearm.
“Colin, what happened?”
“My hands are shaky from last night’s drinking,” he said, grabbing a corner of the bed sheet and wrapping it about the wound. “The razor slipped and I cut myself. Please don’t mention it to anyone. It will only serve to suggest I was inebriated last night. I don’t want to give my family reason to believe I was intoxicated when I married you.” He smiled at me. “When, in fact, I’d do the same thing this morning, cold stone sober.”
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