The Bashful Bride

by Vanessa Riley

  Maybe she heard his call for abolition and believed his words.

  Heartened, he rent his coat open and refused to stop pressing for the rally. “Abolition is the cause of the day, gentlemen and dear lady. If we do not hear the cry of the oppressed—our brothers in chains just beyond our shores—what good are we? I tell you, we must press Parliament, shake the seats of the House of Lords, do everything that is within our grasp to end the practice in our colonies that we have ended here in England. The barbarous slave trade needs to stop, with nary a slave ship in our docks, and none creeping into our ports. We must deprive our pockets to refill our conscience with goodness. How can we say we value freedom when coins take the freedom of others?”

  Fists raised, almost daring someone to disagree, Arthur received nothing but applause. The young woman clapped again.

  Blood pumping, he went back to his table and sampled the air, rank with swill and perspiration. He felt good. Someone was moved today from ambivalence to awareness of the plight of the enslaved. He sensed it. Maybe someone here would stand up for the fight.

  Yet, no man in the cellar was called to fight abolition more than him. The passion had rooted in him early, for the sins of his bloodline must be righted.

  One fellow got up and staggered first toward Arthur but then headed straight for the woman. The drunk grabbed her arm and dragged her close to the chair on which Arthur had just stood. “Get on up there, and we can practice selling her so Bex can save her.”

  “Let… Let me go.” She struggled, but the drunk held fast to her wrist.

  Arthur stood. “Let her be. Have you heard nothing?”

  The fool blew him a kiss as he held her hand high. “So, this is what you fight for, Mr. Actor. A race scorched by the sun. A folk as dim as they are dark—”

  Arthur had him by the throat before the drunk could say more hateful words and yanked him by the cravat away from the young woman. “Get some coffee and sober up. Miss, this is a men’s meeting. It’s not for females.”

  Her eyes were wide, like he’d said something profound.

  “What gives, Bex?” The drunk broke free and snatched her elbow. “We have a prime example of womanhood here. Let’s put her on the chair and sell the little thing for coming to the cellar. You said it yourself. This territory is for men alone.”

  “That hurts,” she said. “Let me go you…you, Iago.”

  The drunk and Arthur stopped at the same time to stare at her, but Arthur was probably the only one to discern that she offered an insult—an Iago being the horrid villain from Shakespeare’s Othello.

  He almost smiled, but instead, he pushed the Iago drunk away, flinging him into a chair. “Do you not hear her cry for freedom, Iago fiend?”

  The girl, who’d now ducked behind Arthur, pressed her lean fingers into his side. That protective feeling that filled him when playing a hero on the stage welled in his chest. “Let’s go, miss. I fear you’ll need a personal escort before another Iago decides to test you. Yes, a personal escort, indeed.”

  Before they could take a step, the drunk careened into him. “No fun, Bex. Can’t have the fancy all to yourself.”

  Temper rising, Arthur did a quick jab, coupled with a fast punch, which sent the man flat to the floor. “Good day, gentlemen. Come, miss.”

  She followed him up the stairs, even as others snickered as they passed.

  “Miss, from the cut of your clothes, I can’t imagine you need to be saved very often, but mind my friends. They can become very animated when disturbed. It was a men’s only meeting.”

  “Maybe you need better friends.” Her voice was low. Her olive cheeks deepened to henna when he turned his head and gazed upon her.

  “You may be right.”

  “Arthur Bex thinks I’m right.” She looked as if she was about to faint. When she stumbled on the last step, he took her hand, the one free of a notebook, into his. A stalk of lilac was crushed between their linked palms.

  “Lilac is a wonderful flower,” he said as he led her back to the main level of the coaching inn. His pulse raced. This was the woman he had exchanged letters with, his potential newspaper advertisement bride. “We have much to discuss.”

  She tried to leave him, but he steered her to his table. Her small frame was rather easy to navigate, putting a hand here and a nudge there.

  Fanning her face, she looked very unsteady, so he took her book from her and guided her into a seat. Would she faint when he displayed his signal to meet, a matching stem of lilac from his pocket?

  She looked caught. The sense of shyness about her made him smile inside. Even though he was applying through the papers for a marriage of convenience, his masculine pride demanded that it still feel as if he’d won someone’s approval.

  “I’m here with my friend. I should find her,” she said. Her voice had a nice tone, clear and low.

  “Of course, miss, but let us take a moment to get to know one another.”

  “You want to know me? Arthur Bex wants to know me.” She put a hand to her bonnet and fanned. “I must be dreaming. This is nothing but a dream. The famous actor, Arthur Bex, is sitting with me, saving me from a drunk. And he wants to know me.”

  She pinched herself. “No. I still don’t believe.”

  Phineas came up and tipped his hat. He looked ready to leave the coaching inn but then decided to take a table. It wasn’t close enough to overhear, but it wasn’t far enough for Arthur to let his guard down. Then he thought about the odds that a Blackamoor woman would answer his advertisement, a Blackamoor marrying an abolitionist. Anger swept through him. This might be a trap. He put his hand upon hers to keep her from squirming or leaving too quickly. “Who sent you?”

  Over her creamy kid gloves, the exposed part of her wrist pimpled. “I sent myself. This is obviously a mistake.”

  The blush, the fear induced bumps—that couldn’t be an act, could it? He sighed. “Well, it is obvious that you know me, but I… Wait. I recognize you from the Fitzwilliam-Cecil wedding celebration. Your family’s in textiles?”

  Her eyes, glittering topaz jewels, grew wide as she pinched herself again. “You can remember that? You remember me?”

  He caught her other hand. “You need to stop doing that.”

  She looked around, her cheeks darkening again, but deeper than before. “You have both my hands, Mr. Bex. As wonderful as this is, it’s not right.”

  Self-conscious about their location and Phineas looking for scandal, he released her. “Sorry, Miss…”

  “Miss Croome.”

  “Ester Croome, if I recall what Fitzwilliam-Cecil said.”

  She dug into her reticule and found a fan. “I barely said two words to you. I can’t believe I am making complete sentences now. And you remembered my name.”

  “You have a very memorable face and figure, and now I hear a memorable voice to match.”

  Blinking ten times, like she’d just awakened, Miss Croome crossed her arms, then uncrossed her arms, then put her hands down. “Arthur Bex noticed me. I’m going to go back to mumbling and broken sentences.”

  She had wit, a sharpness of mind. Something he’d noticed at the wedding party when she’d spoken to others, but not him. He dipped his head closer. “I wish you would continue communicating, or how else am I to get to know you? How else will you determine to marry me? Well, you know of me. Have you made up your mind?”

  “Marry you?” She dropped the fan to the table with a thud. “Arthur Bex, the greatest actor of the London stage, wants to marry me.” She put a hand to her temple and rubbed like it held a smudge.

  His latent sense of humor began to enjoy her shyness. He wondered what other ways he could tease her to embarrass her and how bright her cheeks would turn if she were thoroughly flattered by him. “What can I do to put you at ease? I’ll look at your book. It’s a sketchbook?”

  “Please don’t.” She said as her dimpled cheeks, all her face, reddened.

  “Now I have to look.” He flipped it open and saw b
eautiful sketches of dresses and a page of signatures. Mrs. Bex, Mrs. Arthur Bex, Ester Bex. “You seem quite confident that we will agree to marry. You’ve practiced writing your marital name. You guessed I was the one.”

  “I’m embarrassed, and Arthur Bex is flirting with me. This has to be an illusion.”

  He put two fingers on each side of her squirming temples. “Is this an illusion? You act as if you have forgotten our exchanged letters.” He dipped into his pocket and pulled out the fragrant lilac stem he’d purchased this morning from Covent Gardens after being given the part of Antony—his big next play.

  The girl’s face became crestfallen, her voluptuous lips sagged. “There’s a mistake.”

  “Miss Croome,” a woman said. “There you are, and you found…Arthur Bex?” She gasped, holding her mouth wide open for a few seconds. “Arthur Bex, the actor?”

  “Guilty,” he said. It was the other friend of Fitzwilliam-Cecil’s bride. She was tall with a very light complexion, much lighter than Miss Croome’s olive skin. In certain lighting, she wouldn’t be taken as a Blackamoor woman at all.

  Life might be easier for an interracial couple because of it, but the class differences, her being a duke’s daughter, on such a higher rung than an actor, would be insurmountable.

  He looked at Miss Croome again and was glad it was she writing him, someone in textiles, with humble beginnings like his own.

  The standing woman squinted. “Arthur Bex. The man you… In the plays. The fellow—”

  Miss Croome grabbed her hand. “Miss. Burghley, this is the man who responded to the newspaper advertisement. He’s the one with the lilac. The one you—”

  “No, Miss Croome, he’s the one you’ve been waiting for. Sir, don’t keep my friend too long. I’ll be in my carriage waiting for you, Miss Croome.”

  There had to be some confusion, something underfoot, for his table companion wouldn’t release Miss Burghley’s hand.

  “But,” Miss Croome said before being shushed by her friend.

  “I know you’re shy, but this is your one chance at marrying a man you admire. Mr. Bex, no one is a bigger student of your performances than my friend. I know you two have much in common.”

  Miss Croome didn’t seem satisfied and still gripped Miss Burghley’s glove in a seemingly desperate clutch. “Are you sure, Frederica? Your chance at happiness… Your father—”

  Miss Burghley hugged her. “I still have time. And no friend could be happy at another’s expense.”

  Now Arthur knew something was amiss. If these weren’t Fitzwilliam-Cecil friends, he’d again think this was a plot by Phineas to trap him in a scandal. He swirled a thumb along a scratch in the table. “What does that mean, Miss Burghley? At another’s expense? Everyone’s happiness has some cost.”

  The woman’s expression went from sober to impish in a blink. A wicked smile graced her light features. “It means I’ll be very put-out if you don’t declare to my friend all the reasons you wish to marry her. She’s very busy. I wouldn’t want her time wasted. She has other options.”

  Other options? Of course, other men would have answered her advertisement. Her race might put off some, but her family’s money would make others forget the differences. As for Arthur, he didn’t know. Would it be helpful to have a Blackamoor wife when he sought to be a leading voice in the abolition movement, or would the marriage be a distraction from the cause, another way for men to marginalize his voice? “Options are a good thing.”

  Miss Croome sat up. “This man has many options. He’s Arthur Bex, the man whose performance as Romeo made the critics cry.” She smiled at him. “Made me cry, too.”

  The woman, barely ten minutes into their discussion, had leaped to his defense. He had to get to know her better. He needed a wife who would attest to his character, who would believe in him above everything. Given his family’s history, he wasn’t sure a Blackamoor woman, even one that looked upon him with charity, would want to be his wife, but his goal was for that history to never be known. He craned his neck to find a waitress. “Let me get you all tea.”

  “None for me, Mr. Bex,” Miss Burghley said, lightly tapping the table with her finger. “What do you have to say to my friend? She’s clever, a Shakespeare lover, and usually very articulate.”

  “Yes, when I’m not having palpitations in my chest.” Miss Croome took her sketch pad and pushed air toward her face.

  His seatmate possessed a sense of humor. That was something he treasured. Though she seemed shy now, it had been quite bold of her to come down to the cellar.

  A woman like Miss Croome, who possessed a delicate nature, boldness, and humor, didn’t come around every day, in any race. Arthur caught her gaze again and held on to it, as if reaching for polished gems. Delicate, shy, bold, pretty—though, she frowned as if she couldn’t decide whether to stay, leave, or even be sick.

  He hated to lose. It was the one unfortunate trait he shared with his uncle, the man who’d raised him. Losers straddled the fence. Winners decided. “I intend to declare myself to be of sound mind and body, and I want to marry this woman if she’ll have me.”

  Miss Croome’s cheeks were definitely darker now, and if she proved this easily delighted, the marriage might even be a happy one.

  Whipping the lilac under her nose as if it were smelling salts, Miss Croome lowered her gaze. “I never dreamed to be sitting here with Arthur Bex. Are you sure, Miss Burghley, you don’t want to change your mind and sit with us? Arthur Bex is a wonderful man. He’ll make anyone a good husband.”

  “Not anyone, my dear Miss Croome. You. Upon seeing you look at him and how he’s looking at you, I know this is right. When you are finished here, we’ll head to the party where your other suitor will be.” Miss Burghley offered a final pat to Miss Croome’s hand and left.

  The meaning of the women’s exchange was of no consequence. Arthur noted the important things. Miss Croome knew who he was, and unlike the last two women whose newspaper advertisements he’d responded to, she didn’t seem to mind he was an actor…and she liked him. “I’ll be honest, Miss Croome, when I thought of a marriage of convenience, I hadn’t thought a Blackamoor or mulatto woman would respond.”

  “I hadn’t thought of writing to a Blackamoor or mulatto woman, either, and my father wouldn’t want me writing to an actor.”

  Her easy humor made the idea of them marrying more comfortable. “So, Miss Croome, my race does not matter to you or your father, but my profession and lack of fortune do?”

  “The lack of a fortune, the profession, and your race will bother him, but my happiness seems…is no longer his concern.”

  “And those are not your concerns, Miss Croome?”

  With wide, toasty, topaz eyes, she looked unafraid, even alluring. “No. Just my happiness.”

  Given to gambles, he’d test her, even though he had mostly made up his risk-taking mind. “In a jaded way, a well-spoken Blackamoor would cement my credentials for the cause that I fight for—abolition. Who could doubt my sincerity to end slavery if Miss Croome could attest to my heart? That’s how the reporters will put our marriage.”

  “Or the fabric princess debases herself and her family with an actor—the gossips aren’t kind on my part of town, either.”

  A sense of realism with her humor. That was something else he liked. Another good point in her favor. Arthur drummed the table again. “We should get to know each other over a pot of tea. How would you like that?”

  “The same as you, with honey and a little lemon.” Her voice was stronger now. She must be getting used to him. “And chamomile is my favorite, too, just like you.”

  “You know this?”

  “I’ve studied everything about you, Mr. Bex, for a long time.”

  Three points in a row—she’d won the tally. Newspaper advertisement number eleven seemed more and more the one, despite the obstacles. He stretched and signaled to a barmaid.

  Once the flabbergasted woman took his order, he returned his full attention
to Miss Croome and her lovely eyes. “So why are you seeking a husband by newspaper? The fabric princess has other options, as your friend put it.”

  “I must be honest with you. Honesty and fidelity are the two things which are most important to me. You have been corresponding with Miss Burghley. I helped with the wording of her advertisement, but it was she who placed it, not me. But she, all my friends, know I am in awe of you. I have been for two years. She was the lucky one who you wrote to. I should just retrieve her or leave. Starting out under a falsehood is a bad omen.”

  He put his hand on hers. “You are the one who’s here now. The one I wish to share tea with. Stay.”

  She nodded and slipped her palm to her lap.

  Miss Croome with her button nose, and her noticeable figure hiding beneath the blousy spencer, blushed again, a deeper shade of henna, the color again commanding all of her face.

  She smiled as she took her tea. Her long lashes fluttered as she gulped. “Done, Mr. Bex. Now you can send me home, back to reality.”

  She was definitely all woman, definitely attracted to him, and definitely a pleasing mixture of boldness and shyness. Unlike other theatergoers and sycophants who’d taken an interest in him because of his celebrity, this woman seemed cautious. Perhaps she needed convincing that a marriage of convenience could work. Point four, a challenge. A challenge was something Arthur appreciated, something inescapable in his foul blood.

  He looked over at Phineas. The bloodhound nodded. He wouldn’t stop chasing until he found Arthur’s scandal. A respectable wife to recommend Arthur would deter questions, give the hounds a new story to chew. Miss Croome was the answer, but she needed to be swayed in this instance, or he’d lose her before they had a chance to begin.

  Chapter Three

  A SURPRISING PROPOSAL