Christy English - [Shakespeare in Love 02]

by Love on a Midsummer Night

  The lords and ladies who had come all the way from the capital surveyed the village around them as if it was lower than the dirt beneath their feet. Arabella felt her anger rise at their arrogance. She wanted to send them away from the village that had been her home during the dark years of her childhood. The village had become her haven and now was her home again.

  The ladies all stared at her, taking in her bright blue gown. A murmur went up through the crowd as the women discussed the fact that she was out of mourning a bare month after her husband’s death. Arabella felt the sharp eyes of the ton on her, weighing her and finding her lacking. She felt another wave of anger rise in her breast. Where had all these people been during the bleak and friendless years of her loveless marriage? And who were they now to sit in judgment on her?

  Angelique sensed her tension, pressing her arm in a show of support. She shook her head once, and Arabella reined her temper in. Her friend was right. To show her anger to these people was weakness. They may have come to watch the performance, they might sneer down their aristocratic noses at the people of Derbyshire and at her, but she did not need to stoop to their level. She would never be received in London now, and she did not care. Those people would be gone in a few days, and she would still be there, happy with Pembroke.

  Arabella let Angelique lead her to their seats at the front of the makeshift theater. The play was to begin in half an hour, and Pembroke was nowhere to be seen. No doubt he was dressing in the public house with the rest of the players, donning the robes he would wear as Oberon, the Fairy King.

  Caroline stiffened as a storm of whispering began to rise all around them. The members of the ton, who before had been busy looking down their noses at everything they saw, went from contemplating her gown to drinking in the sight of Angelique and Caroline walking with Arabella. The two women flanked her protectively, showing obvious solidarity.

  The Carlton House set considered those two women to be mortal enemies, who had fought each other for the love of Lord Ravensbrook. Caroline had won that war, and the fact that she now walked casually and calmly so close to her old rival caused a great stir of gossip as the three women took their seats before the stage.

  Angelique, never one to shrink in the face of gossip, reached across Arabella and took baby Freddie onto her lap. The baby cooed and cried out with joy, wrapping his fat fists in the necklace at her throat. She pried her diamonds out of his grasp, turning to smile over the assembled company as if holding her lover’s child was the most natural thing in the world. The tide of whispers rose in a great wave, and Caroline laughed under her breath.

  Anthony appeared in that moment, stepping out of the public house where he had been speaking with Pembroke. Like his wife, Lord Ravensbrook did not shrink from gossip, but neither did he acknowledge it. Anthony strode like Mars across the village green as if it were a field of war. He looked neither right nor left but sat down beside his wife, kissing her on the lips for all to see.

  An audible gasp rose from the assembled ladies, and the local villagers applauded to see the earl greet his wife with such open affection. Anthony did not acknowledge the approbation of the locals, but Caroline smiled and waved to them.

  Arabella glanced furtively at Angelique, expecting her to be mortified by the attention Anthony paid his wife. But Angelique had eyes only for the baby on her lap, who had started babbling at her in earnest. Angelique listened to Freddie very seriously, nodding her head all the while, occasionally murmuring, “Indeed!” as if the wisdom he imparted were pearls of great price.

  A hulking naval man came to sit at Angelique’s side, his long auburn hair tied in a queue at the nape of his neck. His Royal Navy uniform gleamed dark blue and gold in the slanting sunlight. Arabella gasped to see a perfect stranger appear beside her friend without so much as asking for permission to sit, but it seemed that the gentleman was no stranger. Angelique nodded in acknowledgement of his presence, raising one eyebrow.

  “Good evening, James. I thought the tide was turning, and you needed to be gone.”

  “The tide is always turning, my lady. Wait twelve hours, and it will turn again.”

  The man’s voice was deep and sweet, like mulled cider with honey mixed in it. Arabella gave her friend a questioning look, but Angelique ignored both James and herself in favor of the baby on her lap. Caroline peered down the row of seats to smile warmly at their new acquaintance, but Anthony ignored him completely.

  “Forgive Countess Devonshire,” the navy man said. “She is a noble savage with no manners but those used to seduce a man. Allow me to present myself. I am Captain James Montgomery, formerly of His Majesty’s Navy, at your service.”

  “Good evening, Captain Montgomery. Any friend of Angelique’s is welcome in our circle. I am Lady Arabella Hawthorne, and there you see the Earl and Countess of Ravensbrook.”

  Anthony had the civility to nod, though he did not spare a glance for James Montgomery. Caroline seemed of the same opinion as Arabella, that any fine-looking gentleman was worth welcoming. Caroline cut her eyes at Angelique while she greeted Captain Montgomery with a warm smile. “Good evening, Captain. What brings you to Derbyshire?”

  Angelique turned her head to face him as baby Freddie made another grab for her necklace. She drew the diamonds from the baby’s fat fingers once again, speaking all the while to the gentleman at her side. “Indeed, James. What brings you here?”

  James Montgomery smiled at the woman beside him as if he knew her very well, far better than he would openly admit. Arabella was shocked to see a bit of color rise in Angelique’s cheeks. Had Arabella not known it to be impossible, she would have thought that her best friend was blushing.

  “Why, Countess Devonshire, like the rest of London, I am here to see the play.”

  In that moment, the music rose, the pounding of a snare drum mixed with the high notes of a fife. Anthony and James both reached for weapons at the sound of it, and Arabella remembered that drums and fifes were used in war. The play began then, and Arabella forgot the drama going on around her. She had eyes only for the makeshift stage as she waited for Pembroke to come into view.

  He strode onto the boards as if he owned them, and indeed, very likely he had contributed to paying for them. His presence was as grand as any of the professional actors, his voice as strong, his deep tones carrying over the audience, villagers and nobility alike. He was dressed in blue and gold, his robes like something a Turk might wear, complete with pantaloons and a scimitar at his hip. But instead of making him look ridiculous, these clothes transformed him into a king, or perhaps it was he who transformed them.

  Though she had sat through countless rehearsals and knew every line that he would speak, something about the lamps lit along the foot of the stage, the greasepaint, and the costumes transported her to another world. Arabella was drawn into Shakespeare’s dream until it became her own. She watched the foolish young lovers fall under an enchantment. She watched the rustics perform their own play, tears of laughter streaming down her face. When the show ended, she rose to her feet, applauding with the rest of the audience as Pembroke and Titania took their bows at the head of the company. Pembroke looked past the footlights to find Arabella and smiled.

  The sweetness of that smile in the midst of the chaos of the curtain call squeezed her heart. He was at her side in the next moment, drawing her close, pressing a kiss to her lips. His greasepaint came off on her cheek, but she found she did not care. The rest of the world faded away until there was only Pembroke.

  “I love you, Arabella.”

  He kissed her again, and this time she heard the applause of the people around her, their voices no longer calling out to the actors onstage but to her and Pembroke. Arabella blushed but waved to the villagers, who cheered for her happiness.

  The fashionable members of the ton did not join in, but a few scattered gentlemen clapped halfheartedly. The ladies drew their fans close t
o cover their mouths as they whispered together, pouring poison into each other’s ears. Arabella found that she did not care what any of them thought. She would make her life here in Derbyshire among her own people, and let the ton of London hang.

  Pembroke left her as the actors dispersed to change their clothes. She sat on her theater seat and watched as Titania’s underlings from London began to tear the stage apart. Most of the troupe would leave on the morrow after her wedding. Titania said the company was heading to Leeds next and then on to Manchester in their tour of the North. Titania would not travel with them. Like Pembroke, she had performed only for this one night.

  The villagers had lit the Midsummer bonfire, and Arabella walked with Caroline and Angelique to see it. Their party had grown now, with Anthony flanking the women on one side and James Montgomery on the other. Baby Freddie, still awake though the sun had almost set, was cooing at his father and at James as the mood struck him. Anthony lifted his son in his arms, gathering him up from Angelique.

  James took the opportunity to draw closer to Angelique, taking her into the shadows with him. Arabella watched them go, wondering if this captain was Angelique’s latest amour.

  The miller drew his wife toward the bonfire to dance with him, as did the baker and the smith. Arabella turned her eyes from the darkness into which Angelique had vanished and watched as her neighbors joined in the circle around the fire. Following the tradition as old as the druids, one by one each couple leaped over the small blaze, the women gathering their skirts high in one hand and taking their husbands’ hand with the other. The young courting couples began to do the same. Caroline left baby Freddie in Arabella’s arms before she took Anthony’s hand and jumped over the Midsummer bonfire with him.

  Arabella laughed at her friends’ antics, and baby Freddie shrieked with delight. Members of the ton stared and whispered, standing far back from the blaze while the people of Pembroke village in turn ignored the lords and ladies. Pembroke was at her side then, taking Freddie from her arms and handing him to his mother. She smiled up at the man she had loved for most of her life, the man she would marry tomorrow.

  “Will you leap the fire with me, Arabella?”

  “I would, even if it were high enough to burn us both.”

  “Well, until they put the greenwood on, it will not burn as high as that.”

  The heat of the blaze made the blood rise in her face, and her skin became damp as they stepped closer to it. She raised her skirts in one hand and squeezed Pembroke’s hand in the other. Together, they made a running start then leaped over the flames just as the wind caught them, making the blaze rise. Arabella felt the heat of the fire on her legs, and a surge of fear threatened to overwhelm her, but then she and Pembroke came to rest on the other side, without a thread of their clothes or a hair on their heads singed.

  Pembroke laughed, lifting her into his arms. The village cheered them once more as he led her into the circle where the other villagers were dancing. Anthony and Caroline stood outside the group of locals, forming their own tiny circle with their little son. But Arabella and Pembroke took their place among the people of Pembroke, as all thoughts of the Londoners, of Hawthorne, of the world beyond that village vanished with the rising smoke.

  Twenty-six

  Arabella did not retire as soon as she returned to Pembroke House but sat alone in the drawing room, waiting for Raymond to come home. They would marry in the morning. She almost could not believe it. She should be panicking, thinking of some way to run and preserve her freedom. But she found that as much as she cherished her independence, she cherished her freedom to love him more. She would never be happy without him. So she would stay, and marry him, and take what came.

  She stood in the open door to the garden, breathing in the scent of the roses his mother had planted so many years before. Most of the candles were already put out, but one branch burned by the door, ready to light her way to her bedroom with Pembroke beside her.

  Caroline and baby Freddie had returned with her in Anthony’s barouche, and both now slept, tucked away in their suite. Pembroke and Anthony had stayed in the village, drinking with the miller and the mayor, discussing plans for a new thoroughfare through the town to be built sometime next year.

  Angelique had left the Midsummer festival with her sea captain. Arabella would see her in the morning at the church, for Angelique was standing up with her, just as Anthony was standing up as witness for Pembroke. She hoped she had half a moment to inquire who James Montgomery was and who he was to Angelique.

  As Arabella was musing on Angelique’s penchant for taking inappropriate lovers, she heard a crunch of gravel in the rose garden beyond the window. She could not see him in the dark, but she was sure Pembroke had come home at last. She moved back into the room, sitting down by the hearth though no fire burned there. She waited patiently, her hands folded in her lap, for the man she loved to step into the room.

  A figure stepped through the French doors that led to the garden. The man who stood there for one long moment was tall and thin. Though his face was in shadow, she knew him at once.

  “Hawthorne,” she said.

  Her enemy stepped into the circle of feeble light. “I prefer the title ‘Your Grace.’ I believe I have earned it.”

  The signing of her new inheritance agreement had been a farce. It was too good to be true, that he would simply let her leave him, simply let her go.

  Hawthorne carried no bouquet of poisoned flowers with him this night. His gloved hands were empty, their clear white kidskin glowing against his evening clothes of midnight black. All Arabella could see of him were those hands in their dyed leather and his face.

  “You have defied me for the last time, Arabella. I have been more than reasonable, but my patience has come to an end.”

  “What man of reason comes to rape a woman in her own bed and threatens her with a knife?”

  Arabella still had not moved from the settee. She could not believe the words that kept rising to her tongue and falling from her mouth, unbidden.

  To agitate a man who was potentially violent was foolhardy. The rules of survival had been drummed into her by her childhood. Hide your feelings. Wait for the man to leave. If he will not leave, run away. If you cannot run away, brace yourself as best you can for the blows that you know are coming.

  But now she did none of these things. Instead, she rose to her feet and faced him, smoothing the silk skirt of her gown.

  “I do not make threats,” Hawthorne said. “You left me in your husband’s bed, alone. Did you think I would require no recompense for that? You will leave your lover behind, and you will come with me.”

  “I will not.”

  “Then I will have you here.”

  Arabella moved quickly, not toward the light and the hallway as he expected, but toward the darkness of the rose garden. She was quick, but he was quicker. Hawthorne’s long fingers wrapped around her arm, drawing her close to his body, so that she could smell the cedar his clothes had been pressed in. She raised her hands to strike at his face with her nails, trying desperately to pull away, but he was too strong for her.

  He drew her close, his breath on her cheek. She could feel his arousal beneath his trousers through the thin silk of her gown. She also felt the sheath of his knife tucked away in the breast pocket of his coat. She reached for it, fumbling against his chest, until he caught her hand in his and bent her arm behind her.

  The pain shot up from her elbow to her shoulder, and she cried out as he bore her down on the hearthrug where she and Pembroke had once made love. He used her body to trap her arm behind her, leaving both of his hands free. She felt his fingers tearing at the bodice of her gown. She heard the silk rip even as she felt the night air on her breast. He drew the knife from his pocket slowly then and ran the edge of the blade over her.

  She screamed, and he slapped her, the knife nicking her skin so that
a well of blood rose on the curve of her breast. She held her tongue then, knowing that he would kill her before help came.

  He reached down to draw her skirts up, and she lay quiet under him as if he had conquered her. She waited until his vigilance had waned, as he began to unfasten his trousers. She reached for his hand then, the one that held the knife. She kissed it, running her tongue over his thumb. His eyes met hers and he shuddered with pleasure, fumbling at his clothes so that he might enter her faster.

  She bit him then, digging her teeth into his hand until she drew blood. And in the same moment, she turned the knife away from her breast, toward his heart.

  She missed and caught his shoulder instead.

  He howled with pain and backhanded her once, but then he was lifted off and away from her, his weight gone as suddenly as it had fallen on her. She sat up, drawing the ruined bodice of her gown over her breasts as she watched Pembroke drag the duke by the throat to the settee.

  Pembroke’s large hand cut off Hawthorne’s air. He used his body to weigh the duke down, taking the handle of the knife and driving it deeper into Hawthorne’s shoulder. The duke made a strangled sound of pain with what little air he had left.

  “If I ever see you again, in London, or in the country, by the seaside, or by the Thames, I will kill you. I will not be merciful as I would have been tonight. I will make it slow. You will beg for death before the end. I will not use some puny blade meant to menace women. I will bring my own. Be warned. This is the only warning you will ever get.”

  Pembroke got to his feet, and the duke lay gasping on the cushions. Ravensbrook stepped into the room, circling Pembroke carefully, moving between his friend and the duke.