Midsummer Magic

by Catherine Coulter

  I don’t believe this is happening, Frances thought, so confused that she wanted to yell. She felt as though she were sitting on a very narrow fence and a battle was raging on either side of her.

  “Fellow should be forgotten,” said the marquess. “He stuck his spoon in the wall long enough ago. Come along, Frances, I’ll show you a bit of Desborough Hall, then you must rest.” He sent a rueful glance toward his glowering son. “I imagine that your journey here from Loch Lomond was a bit ... hurried.”

  “At the very least,” said Hawk. “Going, staying, and coming back.”

  “The name Desborough Hall harks back to Queen Anne’s time again,” the marquess said, ignoring his son. “Charlotte Desborough was a great heiress. She brought this magnificent house with her as a dowry.”

  I didn’t even bring a sou, Frances thought, staring up at the huge two-story rectangular edifice.

  “It always belongs to the eldest son. The second-generation son started the stud and racing stables. The Desborough stud has been revered and quite famous for many years, not to mention the famous race horses produced here. I’ll never forget Fortune, a great stallion who swept all other horses off the tracks. Yes, it was back in 1785, as I recall. Nothing to match him at Newmarket. Not to compare to the famous Eclipse, of course, but no racer compared to him! Fortune was bred off a thoroughbred dam and a Barb sire. Strong as the devil, he was.”

  Frances was certain now that she heard Hawk grinding his teeth again.

  She was led into the grand entrance hall, actually an elaborate drawing room, its ceiling the full height of the mansion, with a fireplace and balconies guarded by wrought-iron gratings. White columns soared everywhere. She followed the marquess into the Western Corridor, through the Smoking Room, and finally into the West Drawing Room. There were George Stubbs paintings of horses on many of the walls. She was aware of elegant furnishings, of so many white walls that it was nearly blinding. “Look closely at the pilasters,” the marquess said, and Frances, thankful that he was pointing to something, realized that it meant the innumerable sculptured columns. “And of course the arcadings are famous, you know.” Arches, Frances thought, pure-and-simple arches. Cornices, she knew, grateful that she knew something, comprised all the ornamental moldings at the tops of the walls. For someone who said “nonsense” about Palladian, the marquess certainly seemed to know his architecture.

  Frances murmured again and again, her voice becoming more dazed by the moment, “So elegant, my lord. So very exquisite. So very ... ah, nice.”

  She was most aware of her husband’s furious silence.

  The marquess came to a sudden halt. “Frances, my dear, you are ready to rest now, are you not?” At her silent nod, he continued, “I have asked Mrs. Jerkins to assign a maid to you.” He pulled on a bellcord, and very quickly a young woman appeared, fresh-faced, shyly smiling. She gave Frances deep curtsy. “My name’s Agnes, my lady,” she said.

  And the old reprobate has the gall to assign my wife a maid, all without consulting me! Hawk stood silently, fuming.

  Frances nodded, then turned to her father-in-law. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and he smiled at the obvious gratitude in her voice.

  “You rest until dinner, my dear,” the marquess said, and patted her cheek. She looked toward her husband, but his face was a closed thundercloud.

  As Frances followed Agnes out into the main entry hall, she heard Hawk say furiously, “You damned old bounder! You planned this whole thing, didn’t you? You wanted me married, so you pretended that affecting final illness! God, I don’t believe it!”

  “You will forgive this pious old fraud, son?”

  Frances stiffened, Hawk’s words flowing through her, but she continued to follow Agnes up the wide staircase toward the vast Eastern Corridor.

  “Your rooms ... well, they’re called Lady Dawnay’s Rooms—and of course, they adjoin the earl’s suite.”

  “Marvelous,” Frances said under her breath. She felt as though she’d wandered into Bedlam, and now she was, willy-nilly, one of the inmates. At least Agnes didn’t give her a lecture on pediments and pilasters.

  In the Smoking Room, Hawk was still raging in fine form.

  “Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it? All that damned illness of yours was just an act, a ruse.”

  “A son should never underestimate his father,” said the marquess, not visibly moved by his son’s tirade.

  “Now you cite me a damnable platitude!”

  “Not really. I just made it up, but perhaps it is worthy of being remarked upon in future generations. Now, Hawk, there’s no reason for you to get so riled. Really, my boy—”

  “No reason!” Hawk thrust his hands into his pockets and began to pace the length of the room. His father regarded his progress with mild interest.

  “You manipulated me!”

  “Well, yes, I suppose you could say that,” the marquess conceded. “In a more felicitous manner, perhaps. But it was time, Hawk, time for you to marry and set up your nursery. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

  “I’m twenty-six! Not exactly in my dotage with you and Mrs. Jerkins!”

  “Nearly twenty-seven,” the marquess said.

  “Another thing,” Hawk said, “how the hell did you know that she was Frances? There were three daughters. No one ordered me to marry any one of them in particular.”

  Now, the marquess thought silently, studying his sons’ flushed face, I have set myself a problem by making her so warmly welcome. He said slowly, “Well, I knew that Frances was Ruthven’s favorite daughter. I imagined, well, perhaps Ruthven pressed a bit more in her direction.”

  “Like hell he did! Didn’t you see her? My God, Father, she looks a fright, a hag! I was worried that when I brought her to meet you—on your death bed, of course—that you would have spasm at the very sight of her. Indeed, in deference to you, I was going to make her remove those ghastly spectacles.”

  The marquess wondered if he should tell his son that he’d seen a miniature of Frances, painted only a year before. He’d hoped desperately that Hawk would select her from among the sisters. Interesting, he thought. Why had Frances donned the guise of a hag? —for that was indeed how she appeared. And Hawk hadn’t seen through it. Most odd, the entire situation.

  “Why did you marry her if she repels you?” he asked. He hoped at least his son’s part of the puzzle would solve itself.

  Hawk fidgeted with a fleck of dust on his blue sleeve. He flushed, and was furious with himself for doing it, for his father, that old dog, had the keenest eyesight imaginable.

  “Why, Hawk?” the marquess asked again.

  Hawk cursed, and flung his hands out before him. “All right, I’ll tell you. Her sisters, Clare and Viola, were both quite lovely as a matter of fact. And witty and charming. And they wanted, nay expected, that if I married them I’d introduce them into London society and allow them to hang on my sleeve. I just happen, Father, to like my life the way it is. Frances, for all her wretched appearance, was preferable. She is quite shy and timid. She doesn’t chatter. Can’t you just imagine beautiful silence at the breakfast table? She doesn’t like crowds or gaiety of entertainments. So, despite her looks, she is perfectly suitable, and she won’t ...”

  Hawk faltered, and his father said in the driest voice, “And you expect to leave her here, don’t you, and continue with your ways in London?”

  Hawk cursed again.

  The marquess wanted to tell his son that his motives were those of a bourgeois, but he didn’t, for the simple reason that Frances was, according to Ruthven, beautiful, charming, witty, intelligent, and a handful. No matter his son’s motives, he had ended up with the right daughter. He suddenly wanted to laugh at his son’s folly, his blindness, his gullibility.

  But Frances did look awful.

  Well, he would take care of that ... eventually. First, he had to find out from his new daughter-in-law the reason for her elaborate charade.

  Then he would deal with hi
s son.

  He was not allowed any conversation with Frances that evening, for she sent word through Agnes, who informed Mrs. Jerkins, who very straightly told Otis, who in turn announced to Hawk that “Her ladyship is not feeling well, my lord. She begs to be excused.”

  “Just as well,” Hawk said. He could enjoy his dinner without chancing to gaze upon that fright in the middle of a bite.

  “Pity,” said the marquess, frowning a bit. “I trust Frances is not sickly?”

  “Nary a bit,” Hawk said, then frowned. “Well, she was ill during our journey from Scotland. She mistakenly quacked herself with horse-colic medicine—thought it was laudanum. Lord, what a fracas!”

  The marquess appeared thoughtfully silent throughout their very formal dinner, and Hawk, still peeved with his sire, said little to enliven things. No, he was thinking, Frances wasn’t ill, not this time. What she was was a damned coward.

  After three snifters of brandy, consumed in splendid solitude in the Smoking Room, Hawk was in a proper way of blaming Frances for all his misfortunes. “I want nothing more than to escape this place,” he said aloud to the empty room. His voice reverberated off the high ceiling. “But I can’t, not until she’s conceived.”

  He had to do it and keep doing it. Hawk rose, doused the candles, and made his way to the Eastern Corridor.

  He stripped off his clothes in his own bedchamber, shrugged into a velvet dressing gown, and strode purposefully to the connecting door.

  If it weren’t for her, everything would be as it should be.

  He opened the door and strode in.

  The room was in darkness.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?”

  Hawk heard her sit up in her bed, heard the shrillness in her voice.

  “It’s just me,” he said.

  “What do you want?” Frances felt her heart begin to pound, felt herself begin to sweat. Not sweat, she thought wildly, perspire. She could picture Adelaide in her mind’s eye, lecturing her in her placid way.

  “Just be still, Frances. I’ll be gone in no time at all.”

  “No!”

  “You certainly cozied up to my father, didn’t you? Did everything he asked of you?”

  “My lord—”

  “Philip.”

  “I want you to leave me alone ... please!” How she hated herself and the damned pleading, nay, begging. “Go away!”

  But he was now standing beside her bed, and she could hear his breathing. “Just lie on your back,” he said. “It would help if you pulled up your nightgown.”

  Bastard! Cold, unfeeling, selfish oaf!

  “No,” she said, and quickly scurried to the far side of the immense bed.

  Hawk gritted his teeth, all thoughts of treating her gently fleeing his mind. “This gives me little pleasure, Frances. It must be done. Now, just lie still!”

  She sucked in her breath on the helpless sob. “God, I hate you,” she whispered.

  He grunted, but she wasn’t certain whether or not it was a grunt to signify he’d heard her and didn’t care, or just an isolated male sound.

  She felt the bed give under his weight, felt his hands clasp her about the waist and pull her under him.

  “Oh damn,” Hawk said. He’d forgotten the wretched cream.

  He frowned into the darkness, but was loath to leave her to fetch it from his bedchamber. He’d just have to make do.

  Without further words, or sounds, he jerked up her nightgown and pulled her legs apart. He could feel her trembling, and that slowed him a bit. “Just hold still,” he said, beginning to feel like a half-wit.

  He eased his hands between her thighs, his long fingers finally touching her. He slipped his finger into her, and began to move. To his relief, he felt her accommodate him, felt her small body becoming damp.

  “Don’t move,” he said, and without another word, came into her.

  Frances cried out, and pounded his chest with his fists.

  He could feel her pain and for a moment cursed himself for treating her badly. She was so damned small, and he prayed he wouldn’t tear her. Then he was seated to the hilt within her. He stopped and waited.

  She was filled with heat and pain and fullness.

  “I hate you,” she said, her voice a hissing sob.

  He ignored her words and began to move within her.

  “You animal!”

  He thrust deep, arching his back, and groaned as his seed spewed within her.

  He fell on top of her, not really from the strength of his release, but from the vague knowledge that he shouldn’t leave her, not yet. His seed had to take hold in her body.

  She lay still as a stone beneath him, her only sign of life the occasional bursts of rasping gasps.

  His breathing slowed, and he felt himself retreating.

  He pulled out, felt her flinch with pain, and rose.

  “Don’t bathe just yet,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning, Frances.”

  Even before he’d closed the adjoining door behind him, he heard her scrambling out of bed and knew she was running to the basin of water on the commode.

  So much for wifely obedience, he thought, but said nothing.

  He was tired, he realized, very tired indeed. And he was still furious at his father’s duplicity. And Frances was the result of that duplicity.

  He sighed and eased himself between the cool covers on his bed. It wasn’t her fault. He’d acted a rutting bastard. Tomorrow night, he would use cream. He wouldn’t hurt her again.

  I hate you.

  She hadn’t meant that, not really. Still, it bothered him. A wife shouldn’t say such things to her husband, much less mean them. A wife owed her husband respect and obedience.

  Life had become excessively grim. Hawk finally fell into a deep sleep, but his dreams were filled with shadowy women who shrank away from him whenever he approached them. He couldn’t make out their faces, but he knew that they were fearful of him, that they wanted to escape him.

  10

  The march of the human mind is slow.

  —EDMUND BURKE

  “You have the brain of a damned turtle! No, that isn’t quite true—a turtle keeps his head tucked inside, while yours, Philip Hawksbury, is aboveground and sticking out of your collar!”

  Hawk eyed his father with faint interest.

  “A village idiot, that’s what I begat!”

  “Father, you will cease insulting me. I am going riding now.”

  “Damn you, boy, what did you do to her?”

  Hawk looked his father over very coolly, an expression he had perfected in his army days. It was nearly always effective, particularly with recalcitrant troops.

  “I did nothing to my wife,” he said finally, his voice as forbidding as the wretched cold water in Loch Lomond.

  “Oh yes, you did,” the marquess said, his eyes gleaming with fury. “Her maid told Mrs. Jerkins, who just happened to let slip to Grunyon, who told me, as is proper, that there was blood on her bedsheets and that she was pale as a ghost this morning!”

  Hawk cursed very softly.

  “Surely your wife wasn’t a virgin until last night?”

  Hawk was silent.

  “No, I can’t believe that, not with you, you randy young goat.”

  Goaded, Hawk said, “No, no, she wasn’t.”

  “Then why blood, damn you? What did you do to her, you half-wit?”

  “It’s what I didn’t do,” Hawk said. He wondered vaguely if a village idiot was worse than a half-wit.

  “And that being?”

  Hawk shrugged, and walked to the long windows in the drawing room. “I didn’t use any cream,” he said over his shoulder. “I forgot.”

  The marquess closed his eyes. Why the devil would a husband have to use cream with his own wife? It was ridiculous, unless he was rough with her and uncaring.

  He looked over at his beautiful son. He was standing tall and straight, his eyes locked on the elm tree outside the window. His Hessians gleamed in the mo
rning sunlight that poured into the room. He was wearing buckskins, and a gray sporting jacket.

  “A husband shouldn’t hurt his wife,” the marquess said slowly.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Hawk said, turning to face his father. “I thought that if I left her to get the cream, she would hide herself somewhere in this tomb of a house to escape me.”

  “Well, that’s truth of a sort. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going riding.”

  The marquess frowned, his most baleful frown, and Hawk suddenly realized that his own practiced expression came from his father. He wondered suddenly if his own son would carry the same expression.

  “You shouldn’t, you know.”

  “Look, Father, I’m weary to death of all this idiocy. If you’re so concerned about Frances, why didn’t you marry her yourself?”

  “I did consider it,” the marquess said frankly.

  Hawk looked surprised.

  “But, Hawk, I realized it wouldn’t be fair. What young girl would want to be bound to an old man?”

  Hawk threw up his hands. “Quite a rich old man,” he said. “I’m quite certain Ruthven would have been delighted.”

  “I never believed—unti! this moment—that you had more of your mother’s brains than mine.” With those blighting words, the marquess strode from the room.

  Hawk went riding. He returned late in the afternoon and closeted himself with his new steward, Marcus Carruthers. An intelligent young man, the son of a vicar, Marcus felt his head reel with all the bits and pieces of gossip he’d heard since the earl’s return to Desborough Hall with his homely little wife.

  “Well?” Hawk asked as he seated himself behind the huge mahogany desk in his estate room.

  Marcus cleared his throat. Why, he wondered silently, was this man, younger than he, so intimidating? Marcus took his time gathering the appropriate papers. “My lord,” he began, “it’s about the stud.”

  “What about it?”

  “It is not being used. The estate is losing a good deal of money. There are three superb stallions, their bloodlines as grand as the king’s, who are moldering in the fields. Two are thoroughbreds, one is an Arab. Stud fees would be enormous.”