by Allison Lane
“Everyone did. Sad loss, that. His wife is an angel. She nursed most of us at one time or another.” He shook his head.
“Jack had just passed Morrison’s body, still headed toward the 95th, when his horse went down. The last thing he remembers is continuing on foot. He was in an area between the lines, or so I gathered from his ramblings.”
“That sounds right. I will see what I can learn. Most of the troops remain in Paris, but many of the wounded are in London, along with some like me who sold out. If I learn anything, I will call on you. And I’m sure we will grace the same entertainments in coming days. The social calendar is rather thin this time of year.”
“So I’m told. Unless you find something definitive, it might be best to meet in public.”
The mention of entertainments reminded her that Jack meant to establish her in society. Listening to customer chatter at Mademoiselle Jeanette’s had brought home how demanding society was. Embarrassing Jack was a far more likely outcome than falling into hysteria. She might be ostracized in minutes.
As she escorted Devlin to the door, she decided to ask Angela to review her manners.
* * * *
Another day passed. Jack remained aloof, saying nothing about his business or hers. Marianne hadn’t heard from Barnett since he’d demanded entry to Blackthorn House on Thursday.
But her fear of meeting people had nearly vanished, as had her concern over Barnett’s next attack. Both had been overwhelmed by new fears when she discovered how deficient her training was.
Even basic manners had grown lax after twelve years of living alone, and her schooling had stopped far too soon. She knew none of the nuances of precedence, little about England’s aristocracy and how its families intertwined, less about matters of dress, entertainment, and on and on. And though she knew the basics of recent scandals, she knew nothing of the minutiae of daily gossip.
Fortunately, her years of study made it easy to learn facts. Skills were another matter. She hadn’t played cards since her family had died. She had never danced. But at least she sketched, did needlework, and could produce common tunes on a pianoforte.
She was studying the steps of a country dance when a footman summoned her to the library. Jack was there with a man and woman she didn’t recognize.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“No.” Jack gestured to his companions. “This is Jones, my batman. And you might recall Mrs. Halsey, who used to be the housekeeper at Barnett Court.” He turned to the others. “My wife, the former Marianne Barnett.”
They murmured greetings.
He seated Marianne by the fire. “I thought you should hear their story.”
Jones looked uncomfortable in this Grosvenor Square mansion. His weather-beaten face belonged outdoors. Marianne looked again at Mrs. Halsey, trying to find some flicker of familiarity, but there was nothing. Hardly a surprise. She’d suppressed all memory of Barnett Court as soon as she’d reached Halworth.
The woman’s gray hair disappeared under a black cap. Her gown hung oddly from stooped shoulders. The bluish haze in her eyes spoke of cataracts – a problem giving Hastings increasing difficulty.
“You begin, Jones,” ordered Jack.
“I nosed around Barnett Court like you said,” reported Jones. “Most of the villagers dislike the viscount on account of him ignoring everyone and raising rents two years running. But they loathe Lady Barnett. They’ll talk your ear off if you’re willing to listen. The kindest descriptions are cold, arrogant, and selfish.”
“Did anyone recall Miss Barnett’s visit?” Jack asked.
“Not in the village – she was never outside, so few even knew she was there. But they sent me to Mrs. Halsey.” He nodded to the housekeeper. “She retired four years ago.”
“Mrs. Halsey?” Jack turned to face her. “Do you recall Marianne.”
“Of course. The poor mite was overwhelmed by us – screamed loud enough to wake the dead, though I, for one, couldn’t blame her, losing her family in that popish place. And Lady Barnett is not one to succor others, no matter how distressed.”
“But surely she understood a child’s grief,” said Jack. “I told her myself that the family had died.”
“That may be – I was in the village the day you arrived, Miss Marianne,” Mrs. Halsey said in apology. “But circumstances made no difference. I’m not one to criticize my betters, but I must say that Lady Barnett cares only for her own pleasure. And her pleasure is a quiet house where children stay hidden until they are called upon to entertain guests. There is no room for anyone who needs so much as a kind word. It’s no wonder her own children are—” She broke off, recalling that her audience moved in Lady Barnett’s circle.
“What did she do with Marianne?” asked Jack.
“Tried to ignore her, but the girl couldn’t stop crying, even after Lady Barnett struck her.”
Marianne flinched, remembering that blow. Mrs. Halsey was opening cupboards in her mind. She had never been struck before reaching Barnett Court. The shock had triggered new tears.
“We finally gave her laudanum so she could sleep, but nightmares woke her soon enough. I was with her, and I must admit, it made my blood run cold. Shouts of blood and knives and who knows what else – I couldn’t understand half the words. I feared that her folks had died on one of them head-lopping things—”
“A guillotine?” asked Jack.
“That’s it.”
“Actually, they were killed by a mob,” said Marianne, again surprised that she could say it without breaking down.
“You don’t say!” Mrs. Halsey shook her head. “You poor thing – not that it would have mattered to Lady Barnett. She swore that you were spoiled and seeking attention. Later, she decided you were the devil’s spawn.”
“Marianne recalls attacking one of the girls,” said Jack, drawing her back to her recital.
“It was hardly an attack – one slap and even that wasn’t intentional. That Miss Catherine has always been vicious. Now that she’s grown, she’s worse than her mother.”
“What happened?”
Mrs. Halsey thinned her lips. “Miss Catherine hated Miss Marianne, in part because her arrival meant Miss Catherine was no longer the eldest, but mostly because of the attention she received – a room to herself, servants with her night and day, meals on a tray instead of in the schoolroom with the other children. By the end of the first week, Miss Marianne had calmed enough that we no longer had to sit with her – or so we thought.” She shook her head. “I checked on her often, of course. But over the next week, her nightmares increased. I didn’t understand why until I found Miss Catherine in her room one night. She’d made a game of grabbing an arm or a leg, then ducking out of sight when Miss Marianne woke screaming. I read her a scold, but it did no good. The next night I caught her holding a pillow over Miss Marianne’s face – that was the night you slapped her, miss.”
Marianne was shaking. No wonder she hated to be touched. Nightmares and torture feeding on each other.
“My God!” choked Jack. “But at least you caught her.”
“Not that it did much good.” Mrs. Halsey settled more comfortably in her chair. “Miss Catherine swore that she’d been waking Miss Marianne from a bad dream when the girl turned vicious. It would have meant my position to call her a liar. But I convinced Lady Barnett to move Miss Marianne to another floor – presented the notion as protecting the other children from disturbances. Then I put a maid with her all the time.”
“Thank you.” Marianne was amazed at how different reality was from her memories. She remembered only Lady Barnett’s claims that she had attacked her cousin in a mad frenzy. And she’d assumed the maids had orders to punish her if she struck out again. Never in her wildest dreams had she suspected they were there to protect her. It was a lesson she must teach Jack.
“It was all I could do,” continued Mrs. Halsey. “I’d intended to tell Lord Barnett when he returned, though it would have done little good – h
e can never withstand Lady Barnett’s pressure. But he took you home without my prodding.”
“I appreciate your candor,” said Jack. He summoned a footman to show her to a bedchamber. Once the housekeeper was gone, he turned to Marianne. “We will keep her here until the trial.”
“Has a date been set?”
“Not yet, but Barnett filed annulment papers Thursday afternoon, right after leaving here.”
She grimaced. It was the first time anyone had confirmed it. The charge had to be madness, which, under civil and canon law, would render her incompetent to contract a marriage. Knowing he’d done it made everything seem more real. She suppressed a new wave of dread at the prospect of facing the bishop, then realized Jones was talking.
“…told me other tales,” he was saying, “though she probably thought them too harsh for the lady’s ears.”
“I doubt there is anything I don’t remember,” said Marianne stoutly, though she’d not known about her cousin’s abuse.
“Lady Barnett hated noise, so she went to great lengths to force quiet – whipping you, locking you in the wardrobe, binding you…”
Jack swore, creatively and long.
“It is over,” she said simply, though Jones had revived other memories she’d locked away. And they explained other fears. She met Jack’s eyes. “Thanks to you, I have put it behind me.”
He nodded, then dismissed Jones so the man could find food and rest. Jack paced to the window and back. “It was far worse than I dreamed. I should have recognized her character and protected you.”
“How? Be reasonable, Jack. You were barely twenty, and Barnett was my guardian. Even if you had recognized her character, you had no standing. And what did you know then of coldhearted women?”
“Nothing,” he admitted. “I’d met few ladies of quality. I never knew my mother, and the females my father brought home were not ladies. But that is not the point.”
“The point is that you are human, Jack, not a god who can see beneath people’s masks on five minutes’ acquaintance. You had already gone far beyond duty by taking me to Barnett Court in the first place. Many men would have left me in France. The rest would have dispatched me on a public coach the moment we reached England. I still had Francine with me.”
“I’m not going to convince you, am I?”
“No. I refuse to beat you up for no good reason.”
He shrugged. “At least this supports your case. Anyone hearing Mrs. Halsey’s tale must believe that your fits were induced by mistreatment.”
“Not necessarily.” She had thought long about her situation since reaching London. There was no way to duck the truth. Marriage might have thwarted Barnett for the moment, but nothing they’d done was straightforward. “People might as easily believe that mistreatment pushed me into madness, especially after they learn how my parents died. You can accept that shock is temporary – I’m sure you’ve seen similar cases on the battlefield – but society believes that women are weak. Thus shock strips us of reason.”
“Then what are we to do?” He sounded at a loss.
She laid a hand on his arm. “Continue the battle. You were right, you know. I must obtain an official judgment declaring me sane. Mrs. Halsey’s story – and Francine’s, if we can find her – will explain my shock, but only my own demeanor can prove that it was temporary. If I can tolerate the inquisition and remain calm despite provocation, then the bishop must support me. Mrs. Hastings can describe Craven’s attempts to seduce me, and Hastings can explain Barnett’s ambush. No one will deny me the right to fight off an attack – I hope. But since every one of those stories can be interpreted two ways, it is my own behavior that will determine the outcome.”
“You will do fine,” said Jack, caressing her hand. “The key is confidence. When we met on the cliff that day, you believed yourself mad. Now you know you are sane.”
“Are you sure?” she teased, meeting his eyes. They flared warm.
“Of course. No madwoman could have survived six hours at Carey’s without slipping deeper into madness. But you are improving every day. You did not even flinch to discover two strangers in here.”
“You did that on purpose!”
“It seemed a reasonable test of your progress. I was here in case of trouble – but I will not be with you in court.”
“I know.” Her panic calmed as his hand covered hers. It would be weeks before she need face the bishop. At the rate she was improving, it would be all right.
“And since you are doing so well, we will attend Lady Potherby’s musical evening on Monday.”
“That sounds interesting,” she lied. But at least she had two days to prepare. The sooner she faced society, the easier it would be to meet the bishop.
Jack hesitated, then plunged ahead. “You should know that Barnett is growing desperate. His rumor campaign is worse.”
“How bad?”
“Actually, he has reached the point of being preposterous – he now claims that your work as a French spy stripped you of reason.”
“As a child?”
“No, during the last years of the war. Devall’s friends are countering his claims. Since their credit is much higher, Barnett is becoming a laughingstock. But his campaign has attracted considerable interest.”
She stiffened her sagging spine. “He must know that his lies hurt him more than me, so why bother?”
“I suspect he no longer cares. Or maybe he expects his reputation to recover once you are back in an asylum. His purpose might be to drive you into a public breakdown to bolster his case. His finances are worse than we originally thought. If he cannot resolve this soon, he will have to drop his petition for lack of funds to pursue it.”
Her fears dried up as she spotted pain in Jack’s eyes. She’d been so wrapped up in her own concerns that she had forgotten how vulnerable he was. “He’s attacking you, too, isn’t he? Has he trotted out your father’s misdeeds?”
He flinched.
“Jack.” She gripped both arms. “You have to accept that you are strong and honorable. It is the only way to fight this.”
“Of course.”
But as he left the room, she knew that he didn’t believe it. “What if proving my reason deprives him of his?” she whispered.
You have to protect him…
* * * *
Jack walked back to Blackthorn House the next afternoon, furious with himself for going to White’s. He’d avoided the place until now, fearing to see Damon again. But today he’d hoped someone might know more about Barnett’s plans. Instead, he had run a gauntlet of well-wishers, the curious, and the snidely superior. His marriage was on every lip.
He had forgotten how bored most gentlemen were. Those he knew from school had nothing to do until inheriting their future titles except game, wench, and pry into everyone’s business. Introducing an unknown in their midst was akin to waving a red flag before a bull – a sport popular on the Peninsula. Already they had discovered Marianne’s lineage, Barnett’s claims of insanity, and the annulment petition.
As Marianne had guessed, Barnett was also attacking him, worse even than he had expected. Acquaintances now looked at him askance. Whispers had assailed him from every side. Most spoke of Wilcox.
In the space of an hour, Jack heard a dozen new stories about the fraudulent investment schemes Wilcox had employed to fleece greenlings – his first big swindle had occurred when he was barely seventeen. Other men revived the tale of Lord Rolland’s murder in that shameful duel. Many questioned Jack’s motives in wedding a madwoman and speculated about her life span once he won control of her fortune.
It was worse than after that cheating charge eight years ago. At least then his honor had sustained him. Now Waterloo had stripped him of that last support. The Caldwell bad blood was exposed for everyone to see. Sooner or later someone would mention his crimes.
He had miscalculated, he admitted in despair. By wedding Marianne, he had burdened her with his own disgraces, tarring her with his
family’s reputation. How could they win if Barnett produced a witness to his infamy? His crimes could condemn her to an asylum.
Somehow he had to keep his failings out of court. And he must warn her that Lady Potherby’s musical evening would be a crush worthy of the height of the Season. Everyone in town would turn out to gawk at the infamous Jack Caldwell and his mad wife. He ought to spend this evening preparing her.
Yet he couldn’t. Sensual images tormented him – a fact not helped by the marital humor his friends had aimed in his direction or by the numerous toasts he’d drunk. He was well enough to go that he would likely attack her again. His control weakened further every day – added proof that his bad blood was taking over. He could not even control his body anymore. If he did not see Marianne safe soon, he would likely add new crimes to his tally – the greatest of which would be fathering a new generation of scandal-makers.
“Lord Blackthorn wishes to see you in the library,” said Barnes when Jack reached the house.
He nodded. What now?
Mrs. Halsey had divulged everything she knew. The first of Marianne’s new gowns had arrived that morning. Marianne’s staff had arrived last night, with Mrs. Hastings starry-eyed over Marianne’s marriage and Hastings anxious to repay Barnett for his cruelty. The good news had been the quarterly statements Hastings had produced. As expected, they had been sent by Barnett, not the trustees.
Jack had returned to the bank to put the fear of God into those dithering bankers. Despite specific orders and the force of law, they had sent Marianne’s income to Lord Barnett rather than to her from the day the trust had started. It might have been understandable when she was twelve – her father had been sloppy in setting up the trust, not considering what would happen if he died immediately – but the bankers should have appointed an administrator to oversee disbursements until she came of age, then given the funds directly to her.
Her quarterly allowance had been ten times what she’d been spending. And the claimed reinvestments were news to the trustees. Their records showed expenditures for a full staff at Halworth, including companion, governess, groundskeepers, and stable hands. They also showed receipts for horses, two carriages, and a stylish wardrobe replenished annually. Barnett had been financing his daughters’ Seasons using his niece’s income.
