Flowers From The Storm (26 page)

His smile faded. He frowned, and shook his head. “Take
thee
Anne
Rose
—”

“Bernice Trotman.”

“Take
thee
Anne
Rose Bexnice Trotman
.”

“Yes!” She leaned forward. “I—”

He interrupted her, taking up a nodding rhythm. “
Christian Richard Nicklas
Langland.
ChristianRichard Nicklas
Langland. I…
Christian
Richard Nicolas Langland.” He shoved back the chair, flung himself out of it. “I Christian Richard Nicholas Langland. Langland. Christian. I Christian Richard Nicholas Francis Langland. Langland!” He gave a harsh victorious laugh. He grabbed the seal, pounding it down on the blotter with each word. “I
Christian Richard Nick’las Francis
Langland!”

His violent excitement frightened her a little. Maddy closed the book. “Perhaps that would be a good place to stop for the day.”

“No!” He came around the desk, took the book from her hand and flattened it open on the table.

“Maddygirl! Take
thee
Anne
Rose
Bernice Trotman—”

She hesitated. He caught her hand, squeezed it, working it painfully in his.

Maddy nodded. He let her go. She leaned over the priest’s book. “—”to my wedded wife.“” That seemed harder to fit to the lilt. She had to force it into an unnatural beat. “‘To
my
wedded
wife.”“

“To
my
wed
wife
.”

She thought that must be near enough. “To
have
and to
hold—
”

“To
have
ant
hold
—”

From this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health—whatever else might be said of the Church of England’s wedding vows, and the Society of Friends had nothing but ill to impart, the lines lent themselves to this simple, heavy cadence that he could repeat. He was far from perfect, slurring over syllables that didn’t quite fit into the rhythm, but the improvement made him joyous.

He paced the room, nodding in tempo, insisting that she read the lines over and over as he repeated them.

Finally he came and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, reciting the whole passage himself. “I
will
. I
Christian Richard
Nicholas
Francis Langland
Take
thee
Anne
Rose Bernice Trotman
. To
my
wed
wife
. To
have
to
hold
. From
this
day fore. For
bet
for worse. In
sick
and
health
. To
love
to chers. Till
death
do
part
.” His fingers worked in time. “According to. God’s
holy ord
. And
there
… I
plight
… thee my… Troth. Ha!” He squeezed her, obviously proud of himself for getting through the difficult last lines.

Maddy turned her head to the side, unable to see him for her bonnet. She didn’t try, not really. Her bonnet was there, reality and protection, buffer against a man’s elation, his beautiful grin and dark midnight eyes.

He was of the world; he would be married by a priest to a child of the world. He would be married, and he would not go back to Blythedale Hall.

With a quick move, she shut the book. She stood up, breaking free of his touch. “I shall tell Lady de Marly then— thou art able to say thy lines.”

She was called into Lady de Marly’s presence directly. The lady ate her supper in bed from a lap tray, enthroned beneath exotic birds and Oriental figures in the Chinese room. Maddy stood with her hands clasped.

“So you believe that he’s capable?” Lady de Marly demanded, between a bite of toast and a sip of tea.

“He will perhaps be better with more work.”

“Six months, Miss Timms. Six months, that is what Lyndhurst gave us. And we may not count upon that, although counsel advises me that it would be surprising if the corrected petition should proceed any faster than the original.” She dropped her teaspoon on the tray with a careless clatter. “We can’t wait upon improvement. Best to have the thing done and get the girl with child. I want no questions of legitimacy.

You understand the urgency of this matter?”

“His marriage, dost thou mean?”

“His heir, girl. He’s got no heir. He ought to have done years ago, like any reasonable man, but what must his witless mother do but pester him every living minute of his life to reform and marry, with the natural result that wild horses could not drag him to the altar. He flouts her every way he can. Not that I blame him for it, but only a selfish blockhead with illusions of immortality would have left the title unsecured. Which, as I’ve made no bones to tell him, is precisely what he is. And now—”

Her voice went to an unexpected quaver. She stopped speaking. Her age seemed to descend on her suddenly, leaving her vulnerable: fumbling for her teacup, taking a long trembling sip. The cup rattled when she set it down.

She stared at nothing for a moment, then made a ripe snort. “Well. At any rate, now that he is—what he’s become,” she continued, with a brittle precision that gained strength as she spoke, as if by saying the thing out loud she brought it under her dominion, “we must retrieve what we can. The dukedom reverts to the Crown without legitimate male issue.
That
is what lies at stake here, my fine miss. He’s got no heir.

An idiot can’t marry, can he? Nor a man judged out of his mind. If we cannot get him wed before he’s declared incompetent—it is lost.”

Maddy was silent, and a little shocked. She didn’t think that Lady de Marly would admire a speech on the vanity of worldly institutions such as dukedoms, but to force her nephew to marry for one, to blackmail him into it with the threat of Blythedale—it seemed iniquitous.

“But—Anne Trotman?” Maddy asked diffidently. “She is wishful to marry him?”

“He is the Duke of Jervaulx, girl.”

“Even though—”

Lady de Marly rattled her cup on the tray quite loudly. “Her father and I have arrived at a satisfactory arrangement a month since. The family are gentry. They have an ancient connection to the Dukes of Rutland, but no direct claim to hereditary honors. Mr. Trotman has just been returned MP for some petty borough in Huntingdonshire. The girl’s marriage portion is a scant ten thousand pounds, against what I think you must agree is a generous jointure of fifty-two hundred annual for the duke’s wife. I believe Miss Trotman may consider herself a most amazingly fortunate young lady.”

“She does not know.”

Lady de Marly became interested in her toast, slicing a portion with exactitude. “She is aware that he has been ill. Her parents and I have not judged it useful to tax her with the details. Young minds are inclined to overactive imagination.”

“Lady de Marly—it cannot be a true marriage before God.”

“You are impertinent.”

“I am plain spoken.”

“Rude and common. A true marriage before God! A ceremony in the Church of England—how much more before God would you wish? Nonsense, girl. What low-bred notions will you prate of next?

Bundling? Shall they court in bed, as the country servants do? Hop over a broomstick for their vows? A true marriage indeed. You know nothing of it.”

“I know that no truth can be based upon pride of place and falsehood!”

Lady de Marly threw down her silver knife. “Insolent jade! Do you call me a liar?”

Maddy took a stubborn breath. “Thou knowest thine own heart.”

“And you would do well to remember it, girl. Enough of your dissenter babble. He is the duke. She will be his duchess. I don’t know what objection there can be to that. I can see only one question, and that is tainted blood, but there’s been no case of madness or imbecility in his pedigree for centuries—setting aside his silly goose of a mother. You may believe that I have looked into it. And Mr. Trotman will have too, if he is a man of any sense.”

Maddy felt distressed. “She will not have him, when she discovers it. She will humiliate him.”

“That she will not!” Lady de Marly said crisply. “Miss Timms—I will allow that you are a generous hearted girl— let me be as plain as you. Naturally you are not accustomed to our ways. Miss Trotman will be a peeress. She will have her own house—this house. Her own staff, access to the greatest in the land, wealth beyond her ability to exhaust. By this alliance, her father’s political career—nay, her entire family’s future—is assured. For all this, she need have no more to do with him than her duty. Her parents understand this, as well they might. Whatever her immediate feelings, I am assured that Miss Trotman, on reflection, can be brought to see the advantages of the match.”

“And the duke?”

“The duke will no longer be your affair.”

“But—if there should be an heir? She might wish to see him sent away then.”

“You strain my patience, Miss Timms. Why think you that I chose the girl? She’s biddable enough. His brothers-in-law will not preside. Nor his mother. Miss Trotman is well-enough aware of who has done this for her.”

Maddy stood silent, still caught in peculiar anxiety for his future.

Lady de Marly regarded her. “Miss Timms,” she said, in a quieter tone than she had yet used. “He is my brother’s last surviving son. He is the last of my family whom I understand. Until you have outlived your husband, your children, and all your generation, you cannot know what that means.”

“”If thou loved him, thou wouldst not ever send him back.“

She lifted her painted brows. “Ah. But I did not say to you I loved him. I said that I understood him. He weds, Miss—or back he goes. I vow it. And so you may assure him.” She rested against the pillows.

“See that he can speak his pledge proper, girl, if you care what becomes of him. Now move this tray, so that I can sleep.”

They were all garnered, the Trotmans, Lady de Marly and the dowager duchess, when Maddy entered the drawing room with Jervaulx. Lady de Marly, without rising from her chair, said, “Jervaulx—Mr. and Mrs. James Trotman.”

The father, a distinguished, vigorous gentleman with high color in his cheeks, came forward across the carpet instantly. He held out his hand.

Jervaulx looked at it, looked up in the man’s face, and made a slight nod. Trotman’s hand dropped.

“Sir.” He responded with a deep formal bow, quickly covering the awkwardness. “I’m honored. May I present my wife—” He turned slightly. The lady, very fair and small, dropped a curtsy. “And this… this is my daughter Anne.” With a fatherly gesture, he beckoned her. “Annie, don’t hang back. She’s a little shy today—perhaps you’ll forgive her, sir, under the circumstances. Come here, darling, and make yourself known to the duke.”

Anne Trotman obeyed, leaving her mother’s side with lowered face. When she reached her father, she glanced up quickly, and then looked down again, lowering herself into a deep curtsy. In that brief glimpse, Maddy saw how young she was, as pale now as Lady de Marly, but with the same apples of pink in her cheeks as her father, the flush of fright in a face just a breath too round to be called beautiful, but still quite pretty. Blonde, dressed in apple green with ribbons and ruches of white, she looked a terrified lamb to Jervaulx’s black wolf potency.

Maddy watched him survey her, her elaborately dressed hair, her puffed sleeves, her tiny waist. So young, Maddy thought—she could not have seventeen years yet.

The duke was impassive. He responded to her curtsy with a half-bow of worldly and impeccable politeness. He straightened, still observing her beneath his long lashes.

“She’s a very nice girl, don’t you think, Christian? A good devout girl.” The dowager duchess floated forward. “Mrs. Trotman and her daughter are both active in the Church Building Society.”

Lady de Marly groped for her stick and heaved herself to her feet. “I believe Mr. Trotman expressed his wish to view the library,” she announced. “Let us leave the young people to divert themselves. Miss Timms—you will stay. Ring for refreshment.”

Maddy was glad of this small task, as it gave her something to do. Lady de Marly overcame the dowager duchess’ reluctance to leave by insisting that she needed her sister-in-law’s arm for support out the door, and the Trotmans filed out in willing subjection. As they passed him, the duke gave them each a nod of recognition, an ironic lift to the corner of his mouth.

The door closed. Jervaulx turned and walked away to the window. He stood there, gazing out.

The girl also stood, her cheeks aflame, gripping her hands together and staring at the floor.

“Thou wouldst sit?” Maddy asked, finding herself hostess.