Barbara Metzger (11 page)

Ignoring Belinda’s pleas, Squire told her she was too inexperienced to know her own mind, that she should not settle for the first likely lad to bring her a posy. Ignoring George’s entreaties, he told Delia’s brother that he was too young, that George needed to sow a few wild oats now, to make sure he was not tempted, later. He refused permission for George to court Belinda, and then refused him permission to call at the cousin’s house in London. His chick had to spread her wings, he said, without a cockerel hovering nearby.

So George decided to prove himself. He’d join the army while Belinda was off dancing and partying. He’d come back a hero, a man irrefutably, and claim the hand of his own true love.

Belinda had other ideas. She reasoned that if she was with child, her father would have to relent, George, naturally, was easily swayed to her thinking. Despite their best and enthusiastic efforts, it seemed, Belinda did not conceive.

The London Season and Belinda’s departure date was growing closer, and Squire’s impatience with George’s presence on his doorstep was simply growing. Before he came to blows with his future father-in-law, the young baronet bought his commission and left for the Peninsula.

Not long after that, of course, Belinda found herself in an interesting condition. Her father did not find it quite as interesting when she returned to Kent before making her curtsies to the queen. Belinda gaily assumed her sire would now be happy to send her to join George and his regiment, so they could be wed before the baby arrived.

“What?” Ty interrupted. “Of all the cork
-
brained schemes, sending a young girl, in a delicate state besides, to follow the drum? Squire Gannon would have to be insane.”

“He was, with anger.”

Delia went on with the story: Squire was so angry, in fact, that he crossed Belinda’s name out of his family Bible and threw his only daughter out of his house. He tossed her traveling bag and her little dog, which George had bought for Belinda, out with her. Nothing else did he let her take. Not coach fare, not her jewelry, not a memento of her dead mother’s, not a shilling, not even a loaf of bread.

“He was the bastard,” Ty muttered, then signaled that he was done interrupting.

Belinda came to Faircroft, of course. And Delia took her in, of course. They hid the pregnancy easily enough while they made plans, telling the neighbors that Belinda had come home to keep her betrothed’s sister company.

Delia was going to accompany Belinda to the Peninsula and stay until the child was born, or until George could bring them all home. Aunt Eliza’s nerves were too highly strung for her to accompany them, and Nanny was too old.

Delia had to stop talking here to take a sip of the brandy. The viscount was cursing too loudly for her to continue. “Two innocents in an army encampment, with nothing but a green lieutenant to look after them! That’s going beyond lunacy to ... to ...” Ty could not think of anything to express his horror at the thought of what could have happened to the witless pair of young females.

“What was I supposed to do? I begged for Squire to accompany us. He refused. I pleaded with him to permit a marriage by proxy. He refused, and I could not get the thing done on my own, for Belinda is underage. I beseeched him to send us to a cottage somewhere, to wait for George, or the child. He refused. What would you have had me do?”

“You should have shot him. Go on. Finish the story.”

They were nearly ready to leave when Belinda’s pregnancy became difficult. She was ill all the time, and weakening. She became fretful, then fearful. How was Delia to get her into a carriage, much less onto a ship? She wrote again to George, and yet again, but the mails were uncertain, and the army was on the march.

Matters worsened, if possible, as the neighbors learned of Belinda’s condition. Faircroft was censured, held up in church as a house of sin. Friends stopped calling, tradesmen stopped acknowledging the Croft accounts. In other, less enlightened times, Belinda—and Delia with her, tarred by the same brush—would have been stoned from the city gates. Now they were shunned.

And Clarence was in charge of the estate finances. He was horrified to have a fallen woman dropping her seed on his family tree and wanted nothing to do with Belinda. He would not let Delia withdraw more funds. She used her quarterly allowance, plus every groat she could squeeze out of the household accounts, thinning the staff, doing without, to afford the highly priced doctors.

Delia begged her own connections for help, but Aunt Rosalie was Clarence’s aunt, too, and equally as miserly. She sent five pounds, as though that could find them a safe haven.

By then, it was horribly obvious that something was desperately wrong, and equally as obvious that Belinda had not counted her days correctly.

And then the letter came from the War Department, and it was too late altogether.

Clarence agreed to let Belinda stay on for her confinement, knowing it would not be long, one way or the other. He had little choice, since the army was slow to send George’s effects home, and there might have been a will in his papers, leaving Belinda whatever was not entailed. Besides, Delia threatened to spread the rumor that Belinda’s child was Clarence’s if he did not let her stay.

She knew that was wrong, Delia confessed, but it was Faircroft or the poor house for Belinda—and for George’s child. No one would have believed the rumor anyway, but Clarence lived in fear of scandal, so agreed.

Belinda had given up with George’s death, and now Delia was forced to be more concerned about Belinda’s eternity than her immediate future. The local vicar preached that what George and Belinda did was a sin, and she would go to Hell, without a stop in the hallowed graveyard. Clarence refused to consider burying her next to George in the Croft cemetery, and her father washed his hands of the whole matter. He would not come to encourage Belinda to get well, to eat for the child’s sake. He would not come to ease her mind with his forgiveness. He wished them both to the devil, instead, Delia concluded.

“But if you were to marry her,” she told Tyverne, “then at least you could make sure Belinda has a place to rest. Her greatest sin was loving my brother, nothing more. Will you pay the debt you say you owe to George? Will you wed his bride?”

Chapter 13

Romeo and Juliet,
hell, Ty thought. This was
Hamlet.
To be or not to be, wed, that is. As Miss Croft told Belinda’s story, Ty listened, sipped his brandy, and pondered. His first conclusion was that life in the military was simpler, with the generals giving the orders, and the junior officers carrying them out. There were choices to be sure, life-and-death decisions, but they were often instinctual, instant, or decided on the basis of solid information. Here Ty was standing in quicksand. He did not even know if such a marriage would be legal, if the bride were not in her right mind. Likely not, but who would contest it?

His father, if Belinda lived. An earl’s son marrying a baronet’s sister was bad enough. Marrying a mere squire’s daughter was worse. Taking to wife a squire’s daughter no better than she ought to be was the worst choice yet—except for the prostitute his brother Nonny wanted to wed. Ty could not be sanguine about the scandalbroth either marriage would pour over the family name.

If, on the other hand, Miss Gannon did not survive the birth of her child, which unhappy outcome seemed likely, Ty would have the whole thing to do over, finding a woman to bear his heirs. He’d have gained a breathing space, though, to decide about his future in the army or out of it. Not even Stivern could put pressure on him when he claimed a mourning period out of respect for Belinda.

The whole thing felt wrong to Ty, unclean, somehow: wedding a woman who could not say nay, planning for after Belinda’s death while she still breathed in the next room, wishing it was Miss Croft who needed him and his name instead.

The woman at his side was the woman the viscount would have married without hesitation. He’d been getting used to the idea, used to Miss Croft’s inquisitive, intelligent nature and the way her red braided coronet caught the candlelight like a glowing halo. He had actually begun to look forward to learning her ways, learning her tastes, and what she tasted like. They might argue—Zeus, they would argue—but life with Miss Croft would not be boring.

The woman who lay so still in the other room, however, was the one George had left behind. She was also the woman whose child he had sworn to accept as his.

And Delia would never espouse a solider.

“Yes,” Ty finally said. “I will wed Miss Gannon to serve George’s memory.”

Delia was almost disappointed, although she had expected nothing less. She already knew Lord Tyverne was a man of honor, although his skull was as thick as stone. His sense of duty could overcome any doubts he had, and his steady strength could see him through any difficulties. She did not mean the viscount’s muscles and sinews, which were considerable, but his inner sureness. Here was an admirable man a woman could lean on ... until he heard a higher calling.

Delia stifled the pang of regret she was feeling. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? A man to make an honest woman out of Belinda, to care for her, to make the choices Delia simply could not, or could not afford. Then why was she so disheartened by his decision She gave herself a mental shake. “Soon? Will the wedding be soon?”

Ty nodded. They both understood the unspoken need for haste. “Tomorrow. My man Winsted cannot have left Canterbury yet, so if you can find a fast messenger, my letter should reach him. He can exchange one special license for another, with the correct names.” The viscount pulled an official-looking document out of his pocket. “The archbishop’s secretary was not pleased with this one anyway, since he had to leave your name half blank. I could not have him write Dilly, and I knew none other for you.”

While she searched out ink and pen and paper in the sitting room, Delia told him, “I never minded Dilly. Not terribly, anyway.”

“I minded. Especially after meeting you. You are not silly or flighty as the name suggests, but you are more dignified, more a woman than a girl.” And now he had no right to insist on or use either name.

Delia could not quite determine if he was giving her a compliment or labeling her a starchy old spinster. She decided his opinion of her no longer mattered, if it ever did. “Are you sure the archbishop will agree?”

“After the donation I made, above the fee? I should think so. He knows the story, or as much as I knew. He and my father have had their differences, too, so he will do it, knowing how much the earl would be opposed.”

“Displeasing your father does not bother you?”

“I have never pleased my father, and will not start living my life to try now.” He sharpened the pen she handed him and started to write. “I’ll have Winsted fetch Stephen Anselm back with him, too, to perform the ceremony. He’s a vicar on the archbishop’s staff. From what you said, I find your local vicar to be singularly lacking in Christian charity. Not the sort I’d want at the wedding.”

“But you know this Reverend Anselm? He’ll come?”

“We went to university together, and pulled each other’s chestnuts out of the fire countless times. I’ve found staff positions for any number of young cubs he wanted looked after, and wrote checks for his pet charities. Anselm will demand a new roof for some church or other, but he will come if I ask.”

Delia took up another sheet of paper and a pencil, to make a list of what needed to be done if the ceremony was to be the very next day. “Shall I invite Belinda’s father?” she asked.

“The man who would let his daughter fall by the wayside? I think not.” He went back to writing his letter to Winsted, his former batman.

Delia interrupted again. “What about Clarence and Gwen? Shall I ask them to attend?”

“It is your home. Miss Croft, or Croft’s, but they are your relations, neither mine nor Miss Gannon’s—my, ah, my future wife’s.” Ty nearly reverted to stammering at the dreadful phrase, but he got it out. “You must do as you see fit, of course, but I doubt Sir Clarence will accept.”

Not witness a viscount’s nuptials in his own house? Delia could not imagine Clarence forsaking such a heady treat, much less the wedding breakfast, subdued though it must be. Gwen would never let him. The wedding at Faircroft could only strengthen her position in the local society, and give her yet another opportunity to flaunt her finery. “He will come.’“

Ty did not bother looking up. “Not after I give him my opinion of his treatment of the gentlewomen in his care.”

Delia flashed him a smile. Large military gentlemen had their uses, after all. “But whom shall you have to stand up with you, your batman?”

“Possibly, if he’s brought his dress uniform into Kent with him. We were not expecting to stop here for long. Sergeant Winsted is more an aide-de-camp than a valet. He and I have been through a lot together, though, so perhaps it would be fitting. Otherwise Mindle can be groomsman, if he will. I daresay he has more refinement than either of us army chaps. Oh, and I think we should have a solicitor present. Do you have one you can call on?”

“Clarence has been consulting Mr. Hedgewick, in Dover, about George’s estate, I believe.”

“No, that won’t do. Not that I distrust Hedgewick, but I would rather have a different man, not connected to your cousin. Anselm will know an honest fellow to bring as witness, to ensure the legalities.”

Delia was counting how many people she would have to offer refreshments, if not accommodations. Would they arrive in time for breakfast tomorrow? Stay for supper? She had to be prepared. Her own list was growing, with barely an afternoon and evening to accomplish everything.

“Is there anything else I am forgetting?” Tyverne asked, before he sealed his letter for the waiting messenger.

“What about a ring? I have one I could give you for Belinda but—” But it was a family heirloom. Somehow Delia did not think the viscount would be happy marrying George’s bride in George’s house using George’s mother’s ring.