An Infamous Marriage (3 page)

Colonel Armstrong’s mouth fell open, then shut with a snap.

Elizabeth stared at Giles in horror. Marry this...this
stranger?
“What?” she cried, her own sickroom voice momentarily forgotten. “No! Giles, you cannot ask such a thing.”

“I can, and I am,” he insisted, then fell into a coughing fit. After a swallow of water and some labored breaths, he spoke again in a fast, frantic whisper. Elizabeth and Colonel Armstrong had to lean in so closely to hear him their hair almost touched. “I leave her with nothing, Jack, nothing. We married before I could get the Kirkham living because after her great-uncle died she had no place to go. And now to leave her homeless and friendless? I cannot bear it. Please promise me so I can die in peace.”

Giles must have peace—but at this price? “No,” she said. “I shall contrive somehow.” She didn’t know how—Great-Uncle Oxnard truly
had
left her homeless and penniless—but surely she could find some sort of respectable work. At least now that she was Mrs. Hamilton she no longer bore the taint of the Ellershaw name. “Don’t worry over
me.
”

“My dear, I go to God. You are all I have left to fear for. I cannot bear to think of you destitute and alone.” He breathed several shallow, crackling breaths, paused, breathed again and turned back to Colonel Armstrong. “She will make you a good wife, and she’ll look out for your mother while you’re away. And I will know she is safe. I must know she is safe.”

He wasn’t about to be persuaded out of this, but when he died—no,
if
he died—surely they need not consider themselves bound by a promise made to bring comfort to his last hours. She stood straight again and caught Colonel Armstrong’s eye. “Humor him,” she mouthed.

He gave her a faint, barely discernable headshake of negation, then turned back to Giles. “I’ll see that she wants for nothing.”

She could accept
that.
If the colonel wanted to hire her as his senile mother’s companion, or if he had a friend or cousin who needed a governess, she would gladly take any help he offered. But marriage was too much.

Giles managed to roll his eyes. “I’m dying. I haven’t lost my wits. I asked you to promise to marry her. That isn’t the same.”

“You cannot ask this of him,” Elizabeth pleaded. “He doesn’t know me. I don’t know him.”

“But I know you both. Promise. Both of you. If ever you loved me, promise.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. She understood what Giles was trying to do. He had wanted to take care of her, he’d told her, from the first moment he saw her. He’d met her while serving as tutor to the grandson of one of her great-uncle’s cronies in York, and he’d determined to save her from the drudgery and hopelessness of her old life. Now he was using the last of his dying strength to ensure that she wouldn’t fall back into loneliness and poverty. As Colonel Armstrong’s wife, she’d be mistress of Westerby Grange, with a fine house and a stable full of the best hunters in the North. Compared to the life she’d known since her father’s ruin, she’d be rich indeed. But what could be more lonely than marriage to a man who didn’t want her?

“Very well,” she heard Colonel Armstrong say in a grave, level voice. “I swear it.”

She opened her eyes and met his, bleak and grim. He didn’t want this, and why should he?

Giles sagged back into his pillows. “Thank you. Thank you.” With visible effort he turned toward her. “Elizabeth?”

She hesitated. If this was the only way to make Giles easy again...perhaps he would get better after all, and all three of them would laugh at this morning’s work as a great embarrassing joke on them all. “I promise,” she said at last.

Chapter Two

As soon as Jack got back to Westerby Grange, he stopped by his tenant farmer’s cottage and asked the farmwife, Mrs. Purvis, if she could go into the village and help nurse Giles Hamilton.

She responded with a brisk nod. “That I will. Sally here can see to the house and the cooking for a few days, can’t you?”

“Of course, Mama,” the girl, whom Jack thought must be fourteen or fifteen by now, agreed.

“He’s worse, is he?” Mrs. Purvis asked.

“I don’t know how he was before, but he’s in a dreadful state now,” Jack said. “He and Mrs. Hamilton both think he’s dying, and from what I saw, I’m very much afraid they’re right.”

Mrs. Purvis shook her head. “The poor lambs, and they were so happy together when Mr. Hamilton brought his bride home. I’ll do all I can for them, and maybe he’ll pull through yet.”

“I hope so.” If only Mrs. Purvis herself could somehow save Giles with her patience and practical skill where Dr. Adams and Mr. Elting had failed with their bleedings and medicine. He was all but certain it was too late, however. “What do you know of the new Mrs. Hamilton?” he asked, keeping his voice casual.

His hostess and her daughter both shrugged. “Not much,” Mrs. Purvis said. “Mr. Hamilton met her in York, and I believe she’s from there. I heard her parents died years ago, and she’d been living with her great-uncle, but then he died and left her without a feather to fly with.”

That much Jack already knew. “What was her name, before she married?”

“Elizabeth Ellershaw,” young Sally put in. “A very pretty name, isn’t it?”

Ellershaw? Good God. If she was who Jack thought she was—and surely there couldn’t be that many Ellershaws out there—then Giles had bound Jack to marry the daughter of a banker-turned-thief. Nine or ten years ago the Ellershaw Affair had been the scandal of England for a time, and Jack had never forgotten because one of his closest friends had lost his savings in the bank’s resultant collapse. He supposed enough time had gone by that few would remember the details now, but he had always hoped to marry a lady whose connections would help him to rise in the world, not one who would bring him down if anyone found out who she was.

Still, his word was his word. If Giles died, he must marry her. As he arranged for Mrs. Purvis’s oldest son to drive her to Selyhaugh in the gig, he prayed as fervently as he knew how that his friend might be saved—and that he and Mrs. Hamilton might be saved from each other.

But Mrs. Purvis came back early the next morning. Jack knew what her news would be even before she shook her head and told him Giles had died a little after midnight. Woodenly, he thanked her for her help even as he began making plans. The decorous thing would be to wait at minimum several months before marrying his newly widowed bride-to-be, but his duties made that impossible. He had only a dozen days left here before he must ride south to take ship for his return to Canada.

He had no desire to marry the plain, pale creature he’d met at Giles’s deathbed, especially now that he knew who her family was. Yet there were undeniable benefits to this arrangement. With a wife at home, while he followed his duty and inclination back to Canada, he could trust that his mother would be cared for and the Grange kept in good heart—always assuming his new wife was prudent and honest, but even gentle, saintly Giles was not naïve and unworldly enough to have ignored those considerations.

Before he left to pay a condolence call on his future bride and make their arrangements, Jack trudged up the stairs to his mother’s room. She still had yet to truly recognize him. Nonetheless he believed she had a right to be the first person to know of his plans.

He knocked on her door. Metcalf, her maid for many years, who had chosen to stay on as her nurse, opened it promptly. “Good morning,” he said. “How is she today?”

Metcalf’s lips twisted in a grimace. “No better, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Ah. Nonetheless, I must speak with her.”

“Yes, sir, but perhaps I should stay with you? She’s used to seeing me every day, and...other people confuse her.”

In other words,
Jack
confused her. He supposed a perfect son would have stayed at home with her all along, but he had always been destined for the army, and he loved military life. He would have made a dreadful farmer. A settled life, rooted to a single plot of land, did not suit him.

“You may wait in the dressing room,” he said. He would tell the servants about his marriage after he and Mrs. Hamilton had settled matters between them and not before. “I’ll call you if she becomes distressed.”

After a faint hesitation, Metcalf stepped aside and slipped through the door into the dressing room, shutting it behind her.

He paused in the doorway of his mother’s sitting room. It was a small chamber, warm and comfortably furnished but painfully neat. Years ago, her private rooms had been marked by the mild chaos of a busy woman, with baskets of mending, account books and half-finished letters scattered here and there.

Mama sat at the window, paging through a book of engravings in the weak light of a gray morning. Before her mind had begun to go, she had been a creature of energy and alertness. If she sat during the day, she’d had a quill or needle in her hand. The only books she’d read were gothic novels—she’d claimed their horrors and thrills calmed the mind by contrast—and she had reserved them for the evening hours after her day’s work as mistress of Westerby Grange was done.

Seeing her so frail and faded broke Jack’s heart. How could Providence have been so cruel as to wreck such a fine mind, so vivid a soul? It would almost have been better if she had died, though he immediately sent up a guilty prayer assuring God he hadn’t meant it.

“Good morning, Mama,” he said gently.

She turned her head and peered at him out of gray eyes that had once been sharp and twinkling but had now grown soft, almost empty. She frowned. “Ned?”

That was a first. So far she’d only mistaken him for his uncle and father, whom he greatly resembled, and not for his blond brother. “It’s Jack. Your younger son.” Her only child now. Ned had been killed in a riding accident shortly after Jack had gone into the army as an ensign of sixteen, and their older sister had died as a young child, long before his birth.

“Jack,” she said carefully. “You’ve grown so. I...I don’t remember.”

“It’s all right, Mama.” He sat in the chair opposite hers. “Do you remember Giles Hamilton?”

“Of course I do,” she snapped with a hint of her old spirit. “But you don’t. He died before you were born.”

He blinked in confusion of his own until he remembered that Giles had been named for his grandfather. “Never mind. I came to tell you I’m going to be married.”

“Married! You’re only a boy.”

What year was it in his mother’s mind? “I’m thirty now, Mama.”

She stared out the window. “Jack was such a sweet boy. Not so clever as Ned, and never could keep still, but he always had a smile on his face when he was a baby. Just like his father.”

Jack rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t conjure up a smile now. “The woman I’m marrying is named Elizabeth. Elizabeth Hamilton.”

“Giles had no daughter.”

“Not his daughter. His grandson’s widow. She’ll be here in a few days, and she will look after you every day when I go back to Canada.”

“Canada!”

“Yes, Mama. I must return. My regiment is there.”

“Your regiment...”

“I’m in the Forty-Ninth. A lieutenant-colonel now. You were so pleased when I got my first commission and came to show you my uniform.”

She shook her head. “Dick Armstrong’s doing. Didn’t raise sons to be food for powder, but your uncle was always filling your head with his tales of glory. What glory? Why, we
lost
the colonies!”

Jack bit his lip and looked away. Here was truth—Mama was past lying now—but she had made a convincing show of admiration fourteen years ago when he had appeared before her as a freshly made ensign glorying in the splendor of a new red coat. “I love you, Mama,” he said at last. There seemed nothing else left to say. “I’ll come again this evening.”

He rose and summoned Metcalf, who to his relief sat sewing on the far side of the dressing room, with nothing of the air of a person who’d been listening at keyholes.

Back in his own room, he changed from his old brown coat into the new bottle-green. No matter how little sentiment or passion was going into this marriage, surely it wasn’t right to call on his intended bride in his oldest and most horse-scented coat. He needed some token of mourning for Giles, too. After a moment’s consideration, he hurried back to his mother’s room, where Metcalf contrived a black armband from a length of ribbon. So armored, he had Penelope saddled and rode off for the village at a brisk trot as the weak winter sun fought to break through a thin layer of clouds.

* * *

The morning after Giles died, Elizabeth sat in the parlor with Mrs. Ilderton, the wife of Selyhaugh’s solicitor, and Miss Rafferty, an aging spinster who rented rooms from the Ildertons. She wished they would go away and leave her alone, but she could never be so rude as to suggest it. They had brought food—a loaf of fresh bread, a platter of ham and baked apples—and Miss Rafferty had made tea, saying it was the least she could do to help Elizabeth in her time of trial.

The vicar had stopped by just after dawn to tell her the funeral would be tomorrow, bringing with him his housekeeper, a sturdy no-nonsense woman who had stayed to help Elizabeth and Mrs. Purvis prepare the body. Mr. Branley, the gentleman who owned this house and had let it to Giles on quite reasonable terms, had also called to assure her she could stay through the end of the month, which was fortunately still three weeks away. After that...well, she supposed she must find some sort of work. If only she had even a pittance of an inheritance to scrape a living from, as Miss Rafferty did.

She supposed Colonel Armstrong would attempt to honor his promise to Giles. Yet Elizabeth intended to dissuade him even though the new marriage would have bought her safety and security. As mistress of a fine gentleman farmer’s manor like Westerby Grange she would be wealthier than she’d ever imagined herself. Still, she couldn’t ask him to tie himself for life to a woman he knew nothing of and who was not of his choosing. Surely he wouldn’t wish to marry her once he knew whose daughter she was.

Giles had awoken briefly yesterday evening before slipping into his final sleep. He’d smiled to see her sitting by his bedside. “Pretty Elizabeth,” he’d said. “I wish I could have stayed longer...given you more.”

She’d longed to weep and bewail the unfairness of it all, that she must lose him so soon after she had found him, but she wanted him to die in peace. “You gave me everything.”

“For a week.” He’d smiled a little. “But you’ll be happy with Jack. I can go to my rest in comfort, knowing you’ll be with him. You’ll suit, the two of you.”

The selfish part of her had wanted to berate him for forcing such a commitment upon her and his friend, for expecting her to marry a stranger. But no, Giles must die in peace, and when he was gone, she and Colonel Armstrong would decide that so mad a promise didn’t bind them and then agree to go their separate ways. “He’s nothing like you,” was all she’d said.

“No. But you’ll come to love him in time. You’ll see. Good man. More clever than he seems at first, and an adventurer, as you wish to be.”

“I don’t want to be an adventurer,” she’d protested. “I want you to stay.”

The smile had flickered over his ruined features again. “Look at your books. Adventures.”

She glanced at the book on the table beside the bed, which she’d been reading to Giles before the disease had settled in his lungs—an account of James Cook’s voyages. She supposed she did collect books of travels. It had been a great comfort, during her years of ostracism and toil in York, to imagine herself away to the far side of the world. But she’d never expected to have adventures of her own, and she certainly didn’t want to think of Botany Bay or Batavia
now.

“I’ll miss you so.” Her voice had broken then.

He’d squeezed her hand with a grip turned so weak compared to the strength she’d fallen in love with. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Those had been his last words.

Now she heard a single horse trotting down the village lane. Looking out the window, she spotted Colonel Armstrong, impeccable in a well-fitted green coat and mounted on a glossy dapple gray. He rode straight to her gate, reined the hunter to a halt and swung down from the saddle.

“Why, there’s little Jack Armstrong,” Miss Rafferty said. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Hardly little anymore,” Mrs. Ilderton replied with open appreciation. “He and your Giles were great friends as boys.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said. “He called yesterday. I believe he was sadly shocked to learn what was happening.” She gazed out the window again. Colonel Armstrong was securing his horse to the gatepost and murmuring into its silvery ear. There was something endearing about a man who talked to his animals, but she shut her heart to his appeal. It felt like a betrayal.

“Perhaps your husband left a message for you to pass along to him?” Mrs. Ilderton guessed.

“Indeed, ma’am.” Thank God she was sensitive enough to spare Elizabeth the trouble of inventing an excuse to push the ladies out her door so she could get on with spurning her unwanted suitor.

“Then we must be going, hadn’t we, Augusta?” Mrs. Ilderton stood, smoothing her skirts.

Miss Rafferty, still watching Colonel Armstrong from the window, started at her words. “Hm? Oh, yes. He’s turned into a fine specimen of a man, hasn’t he? I never would’ve dreamed it when he first went into the army, as short and spotty as he was. He was one of those who looked twelve when he was sixteen, and it seemed so absurd to think of him playing a man’s part and ordering great louts of soldiers about. Such a pity about his mother, don’t you think? And her not so very old.”

She rose, too, and Elizabeth walked with them to the door, thanking them for their gifts and assuring them she would, indeed, not hesitate to call upon them if she had need.