A Bride For Windridge Hall

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “I will not be treated as a common prostitute, being paid for my trouble,” she spat. “What intimacies I allowed you was out of love. All I have ever wanted was to have that love returned. I realize I was hoping for too much! Pray, do not expect me to wring it out of you. I will pack my clothes, and be out of your hair before the sun sets. Don’t bother trying to give me an allowance, because I will just send it back! Since you are incapable of giving your heart to anyone, least of all me, I do not request anything of you!”

  Emily finished securing her dress and hurried from Roderick’s room. Roderick sank back with a moan, covering his eyes with his hand. Now he had made matters worse! The woman was impossible. Perhaps it was better not to have Emily in his life, if this was what he would have to go through every time he touched her. He came to the conclusion that she must have read too many romance novels in her youth, and it had made her addled!

  Emily fled to her own room and threw herself on her bed, sobbing uncontrollably. Muffin jumped up to lick her face, but she pushed the whining pet aside. Nothing could console her. She had demanded too much of Roderick, and he had never intended to relent. She could live miserably with him or suffer without him. Either way, her heart was doomed.

  Slowly, she rose from the bed, and began to pack her belongings. When she was finished, she went down with a message she had written for Willard and gave it to the footman to deliver. She decided she would go and join him and her friends to distract herself from her plight. Perhaps they could advise her of the best move to make, now that there was no hope of her ever becoming Roderick‘s bride. It had been an outrageous idea from the onset, she told herself. Only now, thoughts of him would constantly fill her head.

  When Willard’s carriage arrived to pick Emily up, Roderick was nowhere to be found, yet she didn’t care. She scooped up Muffin, and stepped up into Willard’s carriage, as he held her elbow, looking at her with sad eyes, while the footman loaded her trunk onto the back.

  Roderick was a fool! He idly wondered if he would end up with the estate after all? It didn’t matter, though, because if that happened, he would return it to Roderick again and then Emily was something that Roderick would have to deal with later, when he finally admitted to himself that he could not live without her. If he ever admitted that to himself.

  Emily looked over her shoulder at the house as the carriage drove away, while new tears started to streak her face. She did not see that Roderick was looking down at her through the upstairs window, a whisky glass in his hand. Tears streaking his face as well. He was going to get damned drunk this time, he vowed, as he raised his glass to the window towards the departing carriage. His life was not worth living, but damn, he was not going to let a little slip of a girl dictate to him what he should do with his heart! And if he had to get married to keep his inheritance, then so be it. He just had to get over this ache in his heart first!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Emily sat crying into Lilith’s shoulder.

  “It is no use, Lilith. Roderick does not love me, even a little. He will never love me, or any woman. All he wants from me is an heir, and I cannot live a life with a man who merely wants the use of my body. It would be an empty marriage, my only contentment would be my children, and I would smother them with the love that I could not smother Roderick with.”

  “The man can’t have a heart of stone!” Lilith seethed. “He has to come around, Emily, Willard is convinced that he actually does love you and he knows Roderick better than anyone else.”

  “No. If he was capable of coming around, his few acts of tenderness toward me would have convinced him of his true feelings for me. Willard is wrong. The only thing Roderick is in love with is his precious inheritance. Having a wife is merely the side effect of preserving it. I don’t think Roderick is capable of love, and I refuse to risk future hope that his attitude will ever change.”

  “Well, you can’t just stay at Willard’s house,” Alfred, who was sitting not far away, put in. “It would be as bad as staying at Windridge Hall. He is a single man, living alone, and…”

  “I do not intend to remain here. It was just the only place I had to go to at the time. I need time to think. I will probably have to get a position after all.”

  “Nonsense!”

  Alfred rose to his feet.

  “I shirked my duty in the past, but I won’t do it now, Emily,” Alfred told her. “You will marry me, and I will care for you!”

  “That would be as cruel as marrying Roderick,” Emily insisted. “I could never love you the way I love him, and you would resent me for it in the end. If he tried to force me into marriage by claiming I have been compromised, it would bring you down, right along with me, if I allow you to offer for me.”

  “That is a marvelous idea,” Lilith cheered, clapping her hands. “Remember how upset Roderick was when he believed you had agreed to marry Willard? He would be as disgruntled if he thought Alfred was going to have you. Get engaged to Alfred, and if that doesn’t get Roderick to come to his senses, then you will know he has no true feelings for you. He saw through Willard’s game, but he should know that Alfred would truly marry you, to save your honor, seeing as how you have been living under Roderick’s roof and could have been compromised.”

  She winked at Emily.

  “And if he doesn’t come to his senses, the best thing for you is to be safely married to at least someone you know well enough to get along with for the rest of your life.”

  “That is not fair to Alfred,” Emily insisted.

  “I would do anything to help you, Emily,” Alfred put in. “If this doesn’t work, then I would gladly marry you and try to make you as happy as possible, under the circumstances.”

  “How could you sacrifice your heart like that, Alfred?” Emily asked with astonishment.

  “It is something that Roderick does not know about love, Emily. Love is willing to sacrifice everything to be fulfilled.”

  “But you would not be fulfilled, Alfred. I could never love any man now that I have experienced how I feel when I am in Roderick’s arms. I believe I shall never marry!”

  “Fiddle-faddle! You just believe that because your heart has been broken. Eventually, you could love me a little, Emily. I know you to be a sweet loving person. That would be more than Roderick is offering you in return. It may not be the mad passionate love you feel for Roderick, but it would be an accepting sort of love, and that would be good enough for me.”

  “You are crazier than I am Alfred,” Emily accused.

  “What is going on here?” Willard entered the room. “Making more plans, I see.”

  “Oh, Willard, we are at a loss as what to do to cheer Emily up.”

  “I know what should cheer her up. Why don’t you and Alfred throw a ball? Your parents would agree, wouldn’t they? Seems to me this all started with a birthday dance, perhaps it could end with one. Isn’t Emily’s birthday coming up? And if we play our cards right, we could get Roderick to fall in love with Emily all over again, the way he did at her first birthday dance.”

  “Roderick would never come to a Birthday dance given for me,” Emily insisted.

  “Maybe, maybe not. He says he is going to find another wife. What better place to meet her than at a dance? We just won’t mention it is to celebrate your birthday. There is the off-hand chance he will think he can make you jealous if he is flirting with other women, and you will agree to marry him after all.”

  “First of all, if Roderick was flirting with other women, I would know for certain he had no desire to love me. I am through with games, Willard. All these ploys are in vain. Roderick knows his love for me is the only ingredient missing in his outrageous proposal of marriage. He also knows I will not come to him without it. Since he believes he does not have time to discover his love for me, he can only focus on his need for a wife, and nothing else.”

  “Maybe you are right, Emily, only let’s have a birthday dance anyway. If Roderick does not come, then maybe getting engaged to Alf
red is your only hope, unless you would rather get a position in someone’s household, and give up your little dog there.”

  Emily frowned, as she looked down at Muffin. That was what started all this in the first place. It looked inevitable that she would have to sacrifice her dog and get some kind of employment. She was not going to foist herself off on Alfred. He was too good of a friend and nice of a person to do that to. Only one last birthday dance would be nice, she thought dreamily to herself. Then the memory of her 16th birthday dance seemed to put a damper on the thought.

  “I guess I will take one step at a time. If your parents will let me stay at your home for a couple of weeks until after the birthday dance, then I will make up my mind from there.”

  “Oh I am sure they will not mind, Lilith, told her. Alfred and I will make them see how important this is.”

  “However, would they be willing to throw the dance. That is a big expense…”

  “I will pay the expense,” Alfred offered. “It is the least I can do. Papa cannot complain. After all, you and I have been friends forever. I will hint to him I plan to propose to you at the dance. He has always imagined we would end up together someday.”

  “Please do not embarrass me by actually doing it,” Emily protested.

  Then she gave him a warming smile.

  “I don’t know what I would do without friends like you,” Emily said, hugging Lilith, and then going over and hugging Alfred as well.

  “Don’t forget about me,” Willard laughed, and Emily went and hugged him too.

  **********

  Roderick stood staring out the window. A light rain had started falling, and he seemed to be intrigued watching the drops sliding down the pane, and then dripping off the seal.

  “I knew it wouldn’t last,” Della’s voice broke into his tranquillity. “You are better off without her. She would have tried to change everything about you.”

  “Maybe I need changing,” Roderick muttered.

  Della came up behind him and placed her arms around his waist.

  “I for one, have missed you, Roderick. When are you going to come to me again?”

  “I don’t know, Della. I don’t know that I feel like having a mistress any longer. If I look for someone else to be my wife, having a mistress is just going to complicate things. I hope you understand that. I owe you a lot, but this can’t go on.”

  He pushed her hands away from his waist and turned to face her.

  “After being with Emily I…” He didn’t finish.

  “You love that little tart!”

  “Maybe I do. It hurts like hell thinking of never seeing her again. Only love just complicates people’s lives. It continues to complicate mine. When you love someone, you are in constant turmoil. Everything they say or do affects you too much. It gets to the point where you can’t even breathe, or think, or… It is better to just forget Emily, and get on with finding someone to marry me who doesn’t demand I love them. As long as I furnish them with everything they need in life, and they furnish me with an heir, there should be no complaints.”

  Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life would that be? The only person he could envision spending the rest of his life with, was Emily.

  There was a tap at the door, and Dobbs came in with an envelope on a tray. He handed it to Roderick. Roderick’s heart skipped a beat when he saw that it was something from Emily. His fingers released the seal and opened the message.

  “It is an invitation to Emily’s birthday Dance!”

  He started to laugh.

  “If I may ask, sir, what is so funny?” Dobbs asked.

  Della was looking piqued.

  “It is just an inside joke. The first time I laid eyes on Emily was at her birthday dance when she turned sixteen. Her father had invited me, and she snubbed me at the time. Perhaps, I should snub her this time,” he chuckled.

  Regardless, he knew he would not do that. He just wondered if he had the strength to go to her birthday celebration and not come away feeling more wretched than he felt the first time he had attended her dance? Yes, he was going to go to that dance, if for nothing else just to rest his eyes upon her face once again. Strange, his mood seemed to lighten, and his heart did not feel as heavy as it had a few moments earlier.

  **********

  Emily and Lilith were busy decorating for the dance. There were plenty of servants to do it, but it kept Emily’s mind occupied if she were doing something. All she could think of was her sixteenth birthday when she had snubbed Roderick. If she had not done that, where would her life be now? She worried that Roderick would not come, and then she worried that he would come, and she would not know what to do? She was in such a state, she didn’t know if she would survive the night.

  The ballroom was filled with flowers and netting. Alfred had gone all out and insisted that the girls do whatever they wished for the affair, and he would gladly pay for everything. Lord and Lady Duval were overjoyed to have Emily stay with them and were pleased that Alfred was being so attentive.

  They discussed the possibility of Alfred asking for Emily’s hand since he broadly hinted at it. They were surprised he had not offered for her in the past. It would be nice to have Emily as part of the family and not a part of the working class. However, it was nice to see the young people having so much fun, and the house would be full of people, music, and laughter, which is just the way they liked it.

  Emily and Lilith had written the invitations and invited all of Emily’s old friends. They were also Lilith and Alfred’s friends since they used to run with the same crowds before Emily had lost her fortune. Then, her friends seemed to have better things to do than continuing to call on her. Even so, since the Duval’s were throwing the celebration, there was nothing to keep them all from coming.

  In spite of her mixed emotions, Emily couldn’t help feeling a little excited about the birthday ball, that was thrown in her honor. It would be the last wonderful event to look back on, once it was necessary to support herself on her own. She took great care in dressing herself and Lilith’s personal maid was sent to manage the buttons on her dress. Emily smiled, to herself when she recalled how Roderick had done her buttons the first day she had met him. She realized it had led to her to this very moment in time.

  She looked becoming in the white lace gown that clung to her throat. It hugged her slim body down to her waist, then billowed out at the hips and whispered along the carpet at her feet. She had laced a thin white ribbon among her scarlet curls, that were piled on top of her head. Small ringlets danced around her ears, where she had placed very simple, but striking pearl earrings. Her eyes sparkled as she viewed herself in the mirror, and saw how lovely she looked. Emily had not thought about her beauty, but now she stared at her reflection. She thought how someone as nice looking as herself was going to end up single and lonely for the rest of her life. She could not imagine ever loving anyone other than Roderick, and he certainly was never going to marry her now. If what Willard believed was true, Roderick was deliberately withholding his love from her. Either that, or he did not love her at all!

  Willard grabbed Lilith by the elbow, as soon as she came downstairs.

  “I have it on good authority from Roderick’s carriage driver, that he will be coming tonight. So here is my plan. You must talk to all the men here and make sure they sign Emily’s dance card, so it will be filled before Roderick arrives. Fill it yourself, if you have to, and then inform the young men they will be dancing with her.”

  Lilith’s eyes widened.

  “What will that serve? I thought the whole idea was to get Roderick and Emily together.”

  “We do not want to make it too easy for him. He needs to realize how much he misses her, and if everyone else is dancing with her, it will not only make him jealous, but it will frustrate him. He will realize he wants to have her in his arms, but will not be able to do anything but watch her. If that does not bring him around, I don’t know what will.”

  “
You are so sly, Willard. I only hope it works. If he gets too frustrated he may merely leave the dance.”

  “It has been two weeks, and I have not seen Roderick about the social circles looking for a wife. However, he is coming here, which says something.”

  Just as they were talking, they looked up to see Emily coming down the stairs, and both caught their breaths. She was a dusky white angelic looking woman of stature and the two looked at each other and smiled. They were both thinking the same thing.

  “Oh ho ho, is Roderick in for a tantalizing evening,” Willard whispered in Lilith’s ear. “She looks like the bride she should be right now and all he will think of is how he regrets pushing her away. He will kick himself for not being more willing to give in to his love for her. All he will think about is, how they could have been married right now, if only…”

  “There are too many ‘if only’ in life,” Lilith sighed. “Why does life have to be so complicated?”

  “I think you had better get busy getting Emily’s dance card signed,” Willard encouraged.

  Lilith met Emily at the base of the stairs.

  “You are absolutely stunning, Emily. This will be an evening to remember.”

  “Considering it is probably the last birthday ball I shall ever have, it will be an evening to remember,” Emily agreed.

  “Give me your dance card, and I will get it filled for you. You will be much too busy for men to approach you to sign it. I believe you are going to have everyone buzzing around you. Who knows, perhaps you will get offers of marriage in spite of your lack of inheritance. Many have heard that Roderick had offered for you, and then you turned him down. The gossip is horrendous.”

  Emily’s smile faded. “I hate gossip,” she murmured. “Besides, most of the men here have already offered for me, and I turned them down as well!”

  She gave a little heartless laugh.

  “Don’t worry about the gossip. Make up fantastic stories and turn it in your favor. One pretty smile from you, and they will forget all about anything but how much they want to remain your friend.”