Euphemia and the Unexpected Enchantment: The Fentons Book 3

by Alicia Cameron

  Miss Fleet twisted and turned in her bed that night. It did not matter, did it? Whether Lady Balfour was beautiful in the eyes of the world or damaged. She was who the baron wanted, not Euphemia. Or only as a dressing doll. Yet it did somehow make a difference. First, in showing that his kindness was real, that his character was truly noble. But she had always intuited that. How come she to know him so well in so short an acquaintance? Well, he had been open with her, and encouraged her to share her story. Who in all these years, besides Felicity, had been interested? But he had been. She had known it from the nature of the scant remarks he had been able to make as he lay there, at the way he opened his eyes at some points, to let her see that he understood the pain and struggle she did not mention. Yes, he was a kind man and a sensitive one, behind his bear-like clumsiness of expression sometimes. And when they talked and walked the next day they had been so comfortable together. There was so much laughter, too. Until… She would not think of that.

  She sat up and lit a candle and read his letter for the fifth time. He did not say why he wished to marry her. He did not say he loved … because he could not lie.

  She felt again herself in his arms, his mouth on hers — and it was as though it was still happening, a course of heat moved through her body. For once in her life, whatever his motive, a man had been inclined to her. A good man.

  But then there was the shame of her response to him, of letting him glimpse her own desperation to — she hardly knew what. But she cast her head in her hands with humiliation.

  She understood now that moral fibre, developed over years, could be crushed in a second by passion. Had she not believed him to be kissing another woman, would she ever have resisted him? The feelings he had let loose in her were so strong. Passion, she supposed. She had read of it in books, and now she felt such a physical yearning to be near him that she could almost ride bareback in her nightdress to find him.

  ‘Euphemia,’ she said to herself sternly, ‘Control yourself.’ But it seemed a vain command.

  In the day came Evans, ready to pin some dresses on her even before breakfast. After submitting to this for a half hour, she went downstairs and told Felicity so. The young viscountess said, ‘Let us devote the day to it. I’m gasping to explore all those lovely things. I’ll come to your room, and I’ll bring the gift we brought you from Rome. In all this excitement, I have forgotten it.’

  So it was that the day was spent trying on gowns and being pinned into them. Felicity’s eagle eye had been trained by Lady Aurora’s exceptional taste, and she was occasionally able to suggest a change of ribbon trim on a sash to reflect the colour of Euphemia’s eyes, or contrast better to her hair. Euphemia herself was amazed at how changed she seemed in each dress. It was almost that a shade of moods could be created by fabrics.

  ‘It is certainly the case that these might have been made for you, Euphemia. So little alteration necessary. You looked so radiant in the green. I have never seen you in green before.’ She realised that the constant praise seemed to upset her friend, unused to compliments as she had always been, so she said. ‘Let us to the bonnets.’

  There were ten of these, two that Felicity declared a little démodée and needed to be remodelled in a more modern style. Evans took careful notes. Euphemia’s input was constantly for simplification, removal of flowers or a feather. But once the bonnets were on her, she was overruled, both by Felicity and the looking glass. The bonnets transformed her into another woman, someone à la mode, stylish and very nearly (and this was quite ridiculous) handsome. She began to enjoy herself a little. Evans packed up each gown and took a number of them to the sewing room, the first being tonight’s cream silk.

  ‘You may wear it with this, my dear,’ she said, and pressed a box into her hands. It was lined in satin and contained a ruby pendant, small but with an Italianate setting that Miss Fleet really was enchanted by.

  ‘Oh, Felicity!’

  ‘Sebastian found it. It is quite old, you know. Perhaps a love gift for a lady from two centuries ago. We thought you would like it. You could wear it this evening with the lovely silk gown.’

  Euphemia wore the yellow-sprigged muslin once more, and Felicity could not help saying, ‘Oh, you look such a fashionable little thing! What would Lady Ellingham think if she could see you now? I do think Evans has a way with your hair. Let us leave off caps today and walk like wild things with our hats off.’

  They went companionably down the stairs arm-in-arm, then, as they reached the hall, they heard a carriage draw up outside.

  ‘Bastian,’ Felicity called, ‘I believe it is your guest arrived early! We shall have our walk nevertheless, my dear’ she added to Miss Fleet. ‘Let us go through a side door, to avoid being seen.’

  They did so, and the day was fine enough to permit the short wild walk that Felicity suggested, and they moved to the walled garden, which, vast as it was, still provided enough shelter from the wind to feel that you were in an interior space. The peach trees trained on the walls had shed their fruit, of course, but there were still some apples and plums to be had. The little paths between vegetable beds were like a map of miniature city streets, and the ladies wandered around them, meeting an old gardener with a sackcloth apron tending some cabbages. ‘Oh Grimes!’ Felicity said, ‘How splendid all this looks. But I need to talk to you about the roses in the bed near the house. Come with me.’ Felicity said, ‘Stay here, Euphemia, I will be back in but a moment!’ The viscountess got to the door in the wall of the garden, peered through it, looked back at her friend, and said, ‘I’m sorry, my dear!’

  Euphemia was only confused for a second before the terrible betrayal occurred to her, and that, even before Felicity had disappeared with the gardener, and the huge figure replaced them in the doorway.

  ‘You!’

  He lurched towards her, and she stepped back, almost overturning herself as her foot hit soft earth rather than path. He was with her in two bounds, righting her, and then he stepped back a huge step, giving her space. If only he had not touched her, she might have been stronger, but that searing touch on her arms made her tremble. If only he did not look so apologetic, so worried, so hesitant, so just like the wounded bear, she could tell him to go. But she was silent.

  ‘Durant wrote to me last night. He seemed to think you more than angry, Miss Fleet. He thought you —’ he hesitated, ‘— unhappy.’ She just looked at him. ‘He said he told you something of my life with my lady. Will you let me explain more?’

  She nodded, still looking into the big wounded eyes, hardly daring to breath.

  ‘Let us sit, you will get a crick in your neck looking at me.’ He moved towards a stone bench and Miss Fleet found herself remarking, ‘I will still get a crick in my neck.’

  He laughed shortly. ‘Then you stand and I will sit and you will judge the truth in my eyes. I could think of a better arrangement, but—’

  Suddenly, Euphemia imagined herself sitting on his knee to better look in his eyes, and blushed. ‘Are you quite well, sir?’

  ‘Quite well. The dashed condition comes and goes, often for months at a time, and I am more often well than not. My father had it, and died young. My uncle too, and he still lives at eighty. I feel you should know that. Had I died young, the entailed property and barony would have passed to my brother of course, but there would have been enough, would still be enough, to keep my widow in comfort.’

  She swallowed and nodded, and he sat on the bench as she stood facing him, almost eye-to-eye. He began.

  ‘My lady was so badly damaged by the accident, you see, that she did not want to see anyone but a very few friends. We lived perfectly contentedly together, she was a talented and beautiful lady that I was proud to call my wife. She reigned in her little kingdom like the queen she was, but never ventured further.’

  ‘You loved her, but it must have been difficult for you.’ She longed to caress his big broad face, and smooth away the pain she saw there, but she was still.

  ‘No, I wa
s happy. I had only to look at some of the bargains my friends had made as a wife,’ he growled a laugh, ‘and I knew myself to be fortunate indeed.’

  ‘You had no children…?’ Euphemia was leading him to answer one of the night-time questions that had so robbed her of sleep.

  He sighed, but did not break contact with her eyes. ‘This is the delicate thing to say to you, my dear. My wife was fragile. Her face could hardly be borne to be touched and my big monster of a body could never bear to … press upon her … her limbs.’

  Miss Fleet gasped and blushed. But she, too, did not look away.

  ‘So when you said I was kissing another, it was never true. And I could hardly believe what I was doing, I am such an animal! You, too, are fragile, and I let my passion for you overwhelm—’

  He stopped, for Miss Fleet was now on one large knee, her legs dangling between his, her little arms around his huge neck, looking him straight in the eye. ‘I am strong, not fragile,’ she said firmly. He too gasped, and was kissing her in a moment, not gently at all, but fiercely and ravenously. She threaded her fingers through his wiry mane and drew him closer. ‘Oh, my love, my love,’ he finally whispered at her throat. ‘You have bewitched me.’

  She kissed his eyes and his wet cheeks and moved towards his lips once more, her body inclining into him, but he took her by the waist, as he had before, and lifted her away from him, and set her firmly on the ground.

  ‘We must not kiss again right now.’ He saw he had wounded her again, ‘I could eat you whole, with a spoon, my love,’ he said, lone large finger tracing her cheek, ‘but I will not dishonour you so. Let us walk a little and talk of our wedding.’

  ‘I seem to be inclined to be a fallen woman,’ said Miss Fleet, wonderingly, walking by his side once more. ‘How loose you must think me. But I have never loved before, you see, and I do not seem to be able to temper my feelings.’

  His great booming laugh rang out, ‘I hope you never do.’

  ‘I did not know myself capable of so much passion.’

  ‘I did, when you told me the story of Ellena and that idiot Florian, with such animation and ghoulish intensity. And then you laughed so much when I ran with you in the garden. You were so light and full of joy, I could not stop myself.’

  ‘I never was so before, a big wounded bear of a man brought that out in me.’ She held on to his arm and skipped a little to keep up. ‘I hope … I believe…’ she said tentatively, blushing as she did so, ‘that when one wishes to marry quickly …?’ He looked down at her, with a slightly perplexed look. ‘Is it possible, sir…’ she said dancing ahead of him and turning towards him, looking up into his eyes, ‘… that you might procure a special licence?’ He picked her up then, and whirled her around, his great booming laugh mingling with hers.

  Felicity was in her bedchamber, and alerted by the laugh, which she was surprised did not shake the windows, looked down into the walled garden and wept for joy. ‘Oh Bastian! Look!’ she said, as he was behind her. He joined her and watched as his friend Balfour shook poor Miss Fleet’s bones by spinning her around. By the tinkling laugh they could just hear below the boom, she seemed to be enjoying it.

  ‘Well,’ remarked the viscount, ‘it looks like you’ve lost your companion, my dear.’

  She turned in his arms, ‘And who would have thought that the Viscount of Durant would play Cupid?’

  As the baron set her down and bent towards his Euphemia, he stroked her face gently with his great paw, ‘Euphemia is such a mouthful, my love. You will be just my Fawn to me.’

  ‘And you, sir,’ she said, equally tenderly, ‘will always be my Bear.’

  Epilogue

  ‘Oh, Bastian,’ said Felicity reading a letter over the breakfast table, ‘Richard and Euphemia are back from their wedding trip and will pay us a visit next week.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said her husband, still reading The Sporting Magazine.

  Lady Aurora Fenton, the most elegant lady in London, and a mother figure to the viscountess, said, ‘How long was her trip, my dear?’

  ‘Near four months now,’ said Felicity, still reading.

  ‘It must be pleasant for Balfour to be able to travel with this wife, since his first stayed so much at home,’ said Mr Wilbert Fenton, equally elegant, if a little florid in dress around the waistcoat area. He was fond of Miss Fleet, who had risked much to help them find Felicity when she had left them last year. Though that had turned out not to be necessary. ‘And I love to think of Miss Fleet discovering the world, after the life she’s had.’ Though he drawled, as usual, he sounded sincere.

  Bastian was reading his journal. ‘I told you so, sir!’ he said, addressing Mr Fenton, ‘Fighting Nancy came in at 20-1!’

  ‘Well, it is lucky that I put a monkey on it.’ Wilbert Fenton said, coolly.

  ‘How much is that, pray?’ asked the innocent young viscountess.

  ‘Five hundred pounds,’ the others chanted, gamblers all, and Felicity smiled.

  ‘Such an amount. Do gentlemen always bet such large sums?’

  ‘Frequently,’ said Lady Aurora sadly.

  ‘It amazes me,’ said Mr Fenton, crossing his legs, ‘that now that I do not need the money, I never seem to lose. It becomes tedious.’

  ‘I know Richard a little,’ said Lady Aurora, reminiscently, buttering a hot roll. ‘When I was finished being afraid of him, I liked him very well. He has such an imposing presence. I was very sad to hear of his first wife’s death, for he mentioned her fondly. It is wonderful to think that he will have a sensible companion like Miss Fleet to spend his quiet life with.’

  ‘Well, from the tone of this letter, they hardly seem to be living a quiet life. Climbing mountains inhabited by bandits in Spain, only to view a little church she wished to see. It sounds so exciting. She writes:

  I was always so afraid of life, my dear Felicity, but I cannot be afraid of anything now as long as The Bear is by my side!

  …That’s what she calls him, isn’t it romantic?’ said Felicity, with shining eyes.

  ‘And what animal might I be to you, my love?’ enquired Durant with a heavy sarcasm.

  Mr Wilbert Fenton looked up. ‘I see you as a kitten, myself.’ He lifted his journal to avoid the well-lobbed roll Durant threw at him.

  Felicity laughed, and continued to read, ‘Balfour saw off three banditos on his own, Euphemia says — and she was obliged to hit one on the head with a stout branch.’

  ‘Well done, Miss Fleet!’ said Lady Aurora, laughing.

  ‘The new Lady Balfour is a different creature than we believed, it seems,’ said Mr Fenton.

  Felicity had continued to read. ‘Oh!’ she said, shocked, turning her face to her husband’s. He twitched the sheet from her hand and she pointed to a line.

  ‘Well,’ said Durant, smiling broadly, ‘we must cast aside your vision of quiet companionship in the sunset of Balfour’s life, Lady Aurora.’ She raised her humorous brows in enquiry. ‘Lady Balfour is in an interesting condition, with offspring due in five months’ time!’

  ‘A cub!’ said Lady Aurora, amazed.

  ‘That was quick!’ said Mr Fenton. ‘Let’s hope The Bear was very gentle with our poor Miss Fleet.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Felicity with merry eyes, taking a sip of her chocolate, ‘I don’t think she’d like that at all!’

  ‘Well,’ said Lady Aurora, summing it up for them all. ‘What an unexpected enchantment.’

  Author’s Note:

  Dear Lovely Readers,

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  P.S. I’ll add a chapter of Book 1 of Francine: Francine and the Art of Transformation to tempt you. This is my Edwardian series, set in the time of Downton Abbey, and Francine is an inspirational woman.

  Francine and the Art of Transformation

  (Francine, Book 1)

  Chapter 1

  Out in the street Francine took care that her bronze silk dupion dress did not get wet. It had come to her a few seasons ago from her mistress, she who now looked from the upper window of the elegant London terrace, a picture of desolation. There was nothing to be done about that, or about her petticoats, the damp would creep up, stained by the rain-soaked pavement. It was ten of the clock or thereabouts and although Francine had foreseen something of the kind, her ejection from the house at this time of night had taken her by surprise.