Margarita and the Earl

by Joan Wolf

  She turned to look at him. “And you look very handsome, my lord.” She inspected his neatly brushed hair closely and then gave a little nod of approval.

  He grinned. “I got it cut this afternoon.”

  “It looks very nice,” she said sedately, and they went out together to the coach.

  There were carriages lined up for almost a quarter of a mile outside the Duke of Melford’s house in Grosvenor Square. They had to wait in the carriage for half an hour before their own vehicle drew up before the splendidly lighted entrance of Melford House. Once they were inside, they went up the staircase to the wide landing where the duke and duchess were receiving their guests. “The Earl and Countess of Winslow,” the majordomo intoned, and Margarita found her hand being taken by a tall, aristocratic lady of indeterminate middle age, who peered at her curiously and said, “So you are Winslow’s wife. Very happy to meet you, my dear. I do hope you enjoy yourself. It promises to be a sad crush, I fear.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” Margarita said softly; she smiled a little stiffly, murmured something to the duke, and let Nicholas escort her into the ballroom.

  It was a huge, elegant room and it seemed to her to be filled with people. “Do you know all of these people?” she asked Nicholas in bewilderment.

  He laughed a little. “I know some of them, little one. I doubt if even the duchess knows them all.” The music struck up and he took her hand. “Will you favor me with a dance, Lady Winslow?”

  She smiled at him warmly. “Of course, my lord.”

  After the dance was over, Lord James Tyrrell materialized by their side, and with Nicholas’s approval, he took Margarita to the dance floor. When he brought her back to Nicholas there were several people waiting to be introduced to her, and someone else took her out to dance. Upon her return this time, there was a familiar face waiting next to Nicholas. “Cousin Lucy!” exclaimed Margarita. “I did not know you would be here.”

  “I didn’t realize you were in London, or I would have called on you. How lovely to see you again, my dear. You look wonderful.”

  “Thank you.” Margarita nodded gravely. Then a dimple flickered. “You must come and see Nicky. He is growing so big. Just like his father.”

  “I hope he’s not too like his father,” Lady Moreton said dryly. “One of him is more than enough.”

  Margarita’s chin rose a trifle. “I hope he is just like my lord,” she said firmly. Over her head Nicholas’s eyes met Lady Moreton’s, and it was he who looked away first.

  *

  Margarita found the evening a bewildering parade of faces and names. She felt very foreign and very shy, but she was determined not to let Nicholas down and forced herself to smile and make conversation. It was difficult. The conversations were all brilliant surface with no substance, and Margarita found herself drifting away on a shimmering sea of patter. She tried, with only limited success, to catch onto a lifeline of reality. She had a few moments of interesting talk with Mr. Canning about Spain and a delightful, short conversation with Lord Holland about Cervantes. The rest was vapor.

  Nicholas watched her progress with satisfaction. She was so lovely, so grave and sweet and fragile-looking, that the men to whom he introduced her were instantly charmed. And she favorably impressed the women whom it was important she impress: Lady Jersey, Countess Lieven, Mrs. Drummond Burrell, the Duchess of Melford.

  “Margarita is making a decided hit,” said a voice from over his shoulder in unconscious echo of his own thoughts, and Nicholas turned to look at his cousin, Lady Moreton. He looked back at his wife, who was dancing with Viscount Debenham. “Yes,” she said. “She is.”

  “She is so young, Nicholas. And so fragile.”

  Nicholas knew what his cousin was saying to him and he answered obliquely. “Look at Margarita dancing, Lucy. Do you notice her back?”

  “Her back?” repeated Lady Moreton in puzzlement.

  “Her back. It was one of the first things I noticed about Margarita.” He looked around at his cousin. “Solid steel, Lucy,” he said, an expression in his eyes that Lady Moreton had never seen before.

  “She has been through a great deal, of course,” Lady Moreton replied slowly.

  “She is probably one of the few adults in the room,” he answered. His mouth twisted a little. “Myself included.”

  *

  Both Catherine Alnwick and Eleanor Rushton had been at the Melford ball, and both had been decidedly piqued when Nicholas failed to dance with them. Eleanor Rushton, in particular, watched his careful chaperonage of his wife with displeasure. She was not pleased, either, with Margarita’s appearance. It did not add to her happiness to discover that Nicholas’s wife was so attractive.

  Other people were delighted by Nicholas’s neglect of his mistresses. Lord James Tyrrell was one, and Lady Moreton was another. Lady Moreton called on Margarita the day after the Melford ball and was initially pleased by what she found. From Nicholas’s behavior the last month, his cousin had deduced that his marriage was not notably successful. It seemed she was mistaken.

  Margarita received her graciously in the impressive, picture-filled drawing room of the Beauchamp town house. “You look very lovely, my dear,” Lady Moreton said appreciatively, casting expert eyes on Margarita’s fashionable walking dress of dark gold. “I am glad to see you did not rely on the wardrobe I purchased for you last year.”

  “My lord said he was tired of seeing me in black,” Margarita explained. “He took me to Madame Fentôn’s in Bond Street and bought me far too many clothes.” Margarita looked faintly disapproving. “It was very expensive.”

  If Nicholas purchased a whole new wardrobe for his wife at Madame Fentôn’s, it must certainly have been expensive, reflected Lady Moreton. She looked curiously at Margarita. “Well you look perfectly splendid, my dear. The money was well spent.”

  “It gave my lord such pleasure, you see,” said Margarita simply.

  There was a little silence as Lady Moreton digested this information. “And you, also,” she said finally.

  “Of course,” replied Margarita, but Lady Moreton got the distinct impression that Margarita’s satisfaction derived not from the clothes but from her husband’s pleasure in buying them for her.

  They went upstairs to see Nicky, and Lady More-ton was suitably full of admiration. Over tea, Margarita confided to her cousin her ambition of redecorating Winslow, and Lady Moreton volunteered to accompany her to Mr. Smith’s in Cavendish Square.

  Nicholas came in as Lady Moreton was on the point of leaving. He stopped to say a few words to her, and out of the corner of her eye, she watched Margarita watching her husband. She loves him, she realized in surprise. Her eyes went back to Nicholas’s smiling, arrogant, handsome face. His kind of sophisticated carelessness was alien to the innocent sweetness of a girl like Margarita, Lady Moreton thought. She held out her hand in farewell, and as Margarita took it, Lady Moreton looked closely at her. Her eyes were dark pools of serenity. Suddenly, Lady Moreton was afraid for her. It was dangerous for a woman to love Nicholas like that.

  Chapter Twenty

  “The little rift within the lover’s lute,

  Or little pitted speck in garner’s fruit,

  That rotting inward slowly moulders all.”

  —Tennyson

  At first, Margarita did not at all like the social whirl of London’s famous Season. She found it difficult, even painful, to talk to people she did not know and did not care about. She was taken aback as well by the frivolity and immorality of many of the people she met. They had no understanding of the seriousness of life, she found herself thinking far too frequently. They were like careless children who vandalize out of boredom and out of ignorance. Margarita had too great a sense of the precariousness, and consequently, the preciousness of life to be able to enter into their games.

  Nicholas could join in better than she, but that was because he had other reservoirs to draw on, and for him society was only a diversion. And, too, at every dinner
and every ball, he always found someone to talk to seriously, in the direct, uncomplicated, yet technical way of men. Margarita all too often was left listening to empty compliments and talking to ladies, about fashions she had no interest in and about the scandalous behavior of people she did not know and did not approve of.

  Gradually, however, and whenever he could, Nicholas would include her in his conversations, and Margarita found herself discussing agriculture and foreign policy and reform and manufacture and books and art. She did not understand everything, but she listened carefully, and when she did venture to speak, she was listened to with courtesy and interest. “Very thoughtful girl, your wife,” said Lord Bingley to Nicholas one evening. “Sensitive. Aware.” He nodded approvingly and Nicholas felt absurdly pleased and proud.

  *

  By the beginning of June, Margarita had found herself a comfortable circle of friends. She did not have a gregarious nature and would never be a leader of the ton, but that was a position to which she did not aspire. She hadn’t the patience for it. She was content to have found a congenial group of friends and was far more inclined to put her energy into the few people she liked, and was in sympathy with, than spread herself more thinly.

  She saw quite a bit of Andrés Bello, and it was at a reception that she attended with him that she met Captain Williams once again. The captain had heard of her marriage and frequently wondered how she was faring as the wife of that intimidating, handsome young man he had met so briefly four years ago. He was delighted to see her again, and delighted to see her looking so well.

  They discussed, of course, the news from South America. Bolivar had landed on Margarita Island, and Arismendi and his followers had risen for him. An assembly of notables convened and recognized Bolivar as the supreme chief of the Republic. Bolivar’s next aim was the mainland. The two men discussed at length the prospects of success for the Republicans, and Margarita remained a silent auditor. Her emotions were so tied up with the topic that she could not speak temperately and objectively. All she could say was that they would win because they must win. For her father, for her brothers, for all the thousands and thousands of men, women, and children who had already died. They must win. Any other result was unthinkable.

  Nicholas had promised to meet her at the reception, and he was late. She had been looking for him for half an hour when he finally came in, making all the other men look small. He caught her eye and came across the room. She introduced him to Captain Williams, and Nicholas laughed ruefully as he remembered their own previous meeting together. Captain Williams, confronted with all the humor, charm, and vigor of Nicholas at his best, rapidly reassessed his opinion of Margarita’s husband.

  Margarita felt less tense as soon as Nicholas arrived. She listened to the sound of his voice and watched the play of expression on his face. After a bit she joined the conversation, and shortly after that Nicholas took her home.

  They did not talk about it, but the evening had been a strain on her, and Nicholas knew it. Captain Williams brought back to her so much of the past. Just when she thought she had gotten her life on an even keel, something always seemed to happen to remind her that beneath the smooth waters of the present lurked the terrible, the fearful, the unbearable. It seemed, at these times, that only Nicholas could save her from drowning in those memories. He was comfort and understanding, peace and strength. She thought over and over again that night of how much she loved him.

  *

  Lady Eleanor Rushton was very angry indeed. Nicholas had wounded her heart a very little bit and her vanity a great deal more. She had never before been cast in the role of discarded mistress and she was furious. Nicholas simply avoided her. She had contrived to be introduced to Margarita by one of the more malicious ton hostesses, but Margarita quite clearly had no idea who Lady Eleanor was. And since Margarita instinctively shied away from the people for whom gossip was the breath of life, apparently no one had as yet told her. Eleanor, casting around for appropriate vengeance, determined that she would be the one to shatter Margarita’s innocence.

  Once she decided upon this course of action, Eleanor did not delay in carrying it out. Her opportunity came at a ball given by Lady Jersey. With ruthless thoroughness, Eleanor stepped on the hem of Margarita’s gown and tore it. Then, gushing apologies, she insisted that the girl come with her and let her pin it up. Margarita agreed.

  Eleanor congratulated her on having such a satisfactory husband. She called Nicholas by his first name. She laughingly said that Margarita must be a wonder, to have held him faithful for a month now. She said the men—wretches that they were—were betting in the clubs as to how long he would keep it up. She left no doubt at all that she and Nicholas had been lovers. She mentioned other names as well. One of them was Catherine Alnwick.

  Eleanor was quite satisfied with her evening’s work. When she left Nicholas’s wife, Margarita looked white and shocked and shaken. She had not given Eleanor the satisfaction of any reply. She simply said, in a tight little voice, “Go away from me, please.” But her face gave her away.

  It took Margarita quite a few minutes to school her expression to stillness. She felt nauseated. She felt unclean. She felt betrayed. When she finally went back into the ballroom, she looked for Nicholas. He was dancing with Catherine Alnwick.

  *

  Catherine had been out of London for a few weeks visiting friends in Warwickshire. When Nicholas saw her at the Jersey ball, he made up his mind to talk to her. As far as he was concerned, their affair was over, but he knew that she deserved an explanation. So he asked her to dance. And asked if he could call on her later in the evening. She agreed to both requests.

  He escorted Margarita home in the carriage and told her he had promised to meet a friend at Brooks’s for a late drink. They were in the hallway, with the night footman looking on, and she said stiffly, “Very well, my lord. Good night.” She turned away before he could kiss her.

  He returned to the carriage and gave Catherine Alnwick’s address. Margarita’s behavior struck him as odd, but he didn’t dwell on it. Most of his attention was focused on his coming interview and what he would say to Catherine.

  *

  She received him in the drawing room. When Nicholas, led by Catherine’s butler, found her waiting for him, still dressed in her ball gown, he knew that she was going to make it easy for him. A surge of affection for her rose in him. He kissed her hand and smiled down at her. “I like you very much, Cat. You have always been a good friend.”

  Her answering smile was a little strained, but she smiled. “This is goodbye, I presume.”

  He looked at her cool, lovely, aristocratic face. “I hope we can continue to be friends,” he said seriously. “But lovers—no.”

  He was still standing, and she rose now and walked restlessly to the fireplace. “It is your wife, of course,” she said, staring into the flames.

  Nicholas had expended much thought on how to present the situation to Catherine. He could hardly tell her that he had no interest in any other woman when Margarita was around, that she gave him something he got from no one else. It was the truth and the main reason Nicholas had found to account for his unusual faithfulness. However, it would be less than tactful to say that to Catherine. So he gave her, instead, the other reasons he had invented to satisfy himself as well as her. “Margarita had a very bad time, Cat. She lost her entire family in the Venezuelan war. I am her family now and she depends on me. I can’t let her down. And I owe her something, too. After all, she gave me my son.”

  Nicholas watched as Catherine slowly turned to face him. He was himself very satisfied by his explanation. It made excellent sense, he thought. Catherine regarded him thoughtfully and he looked steadily back. “It would upset your wife to discover that you had been unfaithful?” she asked.

  That was a subject upon which Nicholas had no doubts. “Yes,” he said.

  “Then if I were you, I should keep her away from Eleanor Rushton.”

  He frowned. “What
do you mean?”

  “I mean that I saw her leave the room with Lady Eleanor this evening and then come back later by herself. It must have been Eleanor’s doing. I doubt if your wife would have made the suggestion of a tête-à-tête. Eleanor is hardly her style.”

  Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “If she has upset Margarita, I’ll murder her,” he said, icy rage in his voice.

  Catherine’s blue eyes never left his face. “You love her, you know,” she said neutrally.

  His face was taut. The eyes looking back at Catherine were inimical. Part of him knew that what she said was true, that he did love Margarita. But the part of him that was still scarred by a seventeen-year-old desertion refused to admit it. “Nonsense,” he said harshly. “I feel responsible for her, that is all.”

  “Well, if you feel responsible for her and you don’t wish her to discover your, ah, peccadilloes, then I suggest that you keep away from Lady Eleanor as well, Nicholas.” There was a white line around his mouth, and Catherine’s eyes softened as she watched him. “Poor boy,” she said sympathetically, “you have gotten yourself into a tangle.”

  “I know I shouldn’t have started that up again,” he said stiffly. “But, damn it, Cat, Margarita was away for over a month! I’m not a bloody monk.”

  Catherine looked amused. “That is one thing you have never been accused of,” she agreed.

  “Margarita will just have to understand about these things.” He sounded decidedly autocratic.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Will she?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She will.”

  After he left, Catherine walked slowly up the stairs to her solitary bed chamber. She had always been perfectly satisfied with her life, she thought. Nothing major had really changed. She would miss Nicholas, of course, but, philosophically, she had not expected their relationship to continue forever. There were other men in the world. Why, then, did she feel so inexplicably sad?

  Chapter Twenty-One