Joan Wolf (14 page)

All was in train for their departure when Nicky got sick. He had a cough and a fever. Dr. Macrae came and said it was the same influenza that had struck half of the houses in the neighborhood. He didn’t seem to think it was serious, but of course it was impossible to take a sick baby on a journey to London, and Margarita, who was still nursing him, couldn’t leave him even if she wanted to.

“You go ahead, Nicholas,” she urged him. “You promised Lord Linton you would be there for the vote. Nicky isn’t seriously ill. I can manage here very well without you. And as soon as he
is better, I’ll join you in London.”

She was very firm and in the end he gave in and left without her. That was at the beginning of April. After a week she wrote to tell him Nicky was completely recovered but that Mrs. Wade had taken ill. “I really need her to help me with Nicky on the journey,” she wrote, “so I am going to wait until she is better. I hope your introduction to Parliament went well.”

The next communication Nicholas received from Winslow came from Mrs. Wade. Margarita had come down with the same influenza that had felled both Nicky and herself. “Lady Winslow begged me to tell you not to return to Winslow,” the nurse wrote. “She lays you will only come down with influenza yourself and she would prefer to have you healthy. As soon as she is recovered she will join you in London.”

In the end, it was May before the Winslow family was reunited in Berkeley Square.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

So darke a mind within me dwells

And I make myself such evil cheer   

That if
I
be dear to someone else,

Then someone else may have much to fear.

Tennyson

For the first week of his sojourn in London, Nicholas was involved with the Parliamentary session. Escorted by Lord Linton, he took his seat and was introduced to nearly all the leading Whig politicians. He was most cordially received. The Beauchamps, as befitted one of the most ancient families in the country, had always been relentlessly Tory and tended to regard with disdain Whigs like the Romneys of Linton, whose titles dated only from the time of Queen Elizabeth.

Nicholas was not ready to declare himself a Whig, but neither had he any use for the Tory government of Lord Liverpool. In Philip Romney, Earl of Linton, he found a kindred spirit. Linton was only a few years older than Nicholas, but they had gone to different schools, and as Nicholas was rarely in London, their paths never crossed until last year. The two men had taken an instant liking to one another, each man recognizing in the other a sympathy of thought, and Nicholas was sorry when Linton left London to return to his home in Kent.

“My wife is expecting a child next month and naturally I don’t like to be away from her for long,” Linton said to Nicholas. “Perhaps this summer you and Lady Winslow might pay us a visit at Staplehurst.”

Nicholas accepted with genuine pleasure.

The departure of Linton left Nicholas with time on his hands. He was besieged by invitations, as the Season was getting under way, and as he found the empty house getting on his nerves, he attended more parties than he had any real desire to attend. He missed his wife. And, inevitably, he ran into Lady Eleanor Rushton and Catherine Alnwick.

Lady Eleanor and he had been lovers in an off-again on-again fashion for about two years. In fact, Nicholas had not seen her for almost a year when he met her at Lady Palmer’s reception. In ten minutes Lady Eleanor made it perfectly clear that as far as she was concerned, his long absence made no difference. “My husband is still in the country,” she murmured, large green eyes glinting up at him. “Why don’t you escort me home tonight?”

His first impulse was to say No. He had no real desire to resume his affair with Eleanor Rushton. He hesitated, searching for the words to tell her so. “Or have you turned into a good and faithful husband?” she said, amusement in her rich voice.

His response was uncalculated and automatic, his hand coming up to rest, caressingly, on her bare shoulder. They were standing in an alcove of Lady Palmer’s ballroom and thought they were unobserved. Lady Eleanor put her hand over his for a minute, and laughed.

“When I think of the money most of us have spent on women over the years and I look at Winslow, I could cry,” said Lord Melville to Lord James Tyrrell. They had both been watching the byplay between Nicholas and Lady Eleanor.

“What do you mean?” Lord James asked, constraint in his voice.

“I mean that he hides himself in the country for most of the year, yet the minute he appears in London, half of the most desirable women in town are ready to lie down for him. And it was that way when he was only Nicholas Beauchamp, with hardly a guinea in his pocket. He’s probably never spent more than twenty-five guineas on a woman in his life,” said Lord Melville disgustedly.

“No, I suppose not.” There was an unaccustomed line between Lord James’s brows.

“He didn’t bring his wife with him, I notice,” said Lord Melville.

Lord James drew himself up. “Lady Winslow stayed at Winslow with her son, who was ill with influenza. I understand she will be coming to town shortly.” He gave Lard Melville a very frosty nod and moved away.

Lord James was not happy, and it was not his own lack of success with Lady Eleanor that was disturbing him. He wanted to tell Nicholas that he was a fool for wasting his time on Eleanor Rushton, but he did not have the nerve. He was not enough of a fool to provoke Nicholas. He thought of his friend’s temper, of his mistresses, of his occasional hair-raising adventuring, and then he thought of Nicholas’s wife. The more Lord James thought, the more profoundly unhappy be became.

Nicholas was not overly happy with himself. He had not intended to let himself become involved with Eleanor Rushton again. It was her provoking taunt about his being a good and faithful husband that had done it. Something in him needed to prove, not to Eleanor Rushton but to himself, that he was
not
tied like that to Margarita. The problem was that he missed her damnably, and the more he missed her the more he sought to demonstrate to himself that he was perfectly capable of living comfortably without her. So he got himself embroiled with Eleanor Rushton and, when he visited Catherine Alnwick to end their affair, with her as well.

* * * *

Meanwhile, at Winslow, Margarita was struggling with fatigue, illness, and depression. She missed Nicholas dreadfully. Without him everything was such an effort. And every time she thought she was ready to leave for London, something else happened to delay them. First Mrs. Wade got sick, along with half the staff. Then the whole burden of looking after Nicky fell on Margarita, and she was exhausted from toiling up and down stairs, carrying him around, feeding him, cleaning him, amusing him, and all the time trying to soothe the sensibilities of servants who were not feeling well and were working, like she, at jobs they were unaccustomed to.

There was no one to share it with. She missed, almost more than anything else, Nicholas’s shoulder. It was the small things, she discovered, that brought home to her most acutely his absence. The unimportant, everyday things: the light touch on the cheek, the hand that rested so casually on the nape of her neck, his shoulder to lean against when she was tired and depressed. She had woven the new fabric of her life about those things. They represented to her peace and security and deliverance from loneliness. Without them she was adrift and lost.

She was worn out, which was why she fell so sick with the influenza. It was two weeks before Dr. Macrae would allow her to get up and another four days before she was able to get into the coach to begin her trip to London.

It rained the whole way. Nicky was cranky and fussed almost constantly. He was learning to get his legs under him so he could push himself up on all fours, and he did not like the confinement of the coach. He did not want to be held. He did not want to nurse. He just wanted to get out of the carriage. By the time they stopped for the night it was only three o’clock in the afternoon, and Margarita was almost in tears.

They reached London in the late afternoon of the next day. Margarita, carrying Nicky, ran up the stairs under the shelter of an umbrella held by a footman. Reid was in the hall. “Welcome, my lady. I hope you did not get wet.”

“No, thank you, Reid,” she said, shifting the burden of Nicky from one shoulder to another.

“Here, give that great lug to me,” a voice said, and Nicky was efficiently plucked from her arms.

“Oh,
Nicholas,”
she cried thankfully, the intensity of her relief causing her to abandon for once the careful formality she always maintained in front of others.

He had an arm around her, and she leaned her forehead for a moment against his shoulder. When she straightened up, her eyes were brighter than they had been in weeks. “I was beginning to think you had deserted me,” he said, and she shook her head vigorously.

“Never.”

* * * *

The efficient, healthy Berkeley Square household took charge, and soon Nicky was happily trying to stand on his head in his crib, and Margarita was sitting down to dinner with Nicholas. She had lost weight, and there was a sallow tinge to her skin and shadows under her eyes—and Nicholas thought that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He made her drink two glasses of burgundy with him, which brought some color to her cheeks. He listened sympathetically to her tale of woe, then told her about his own experiences when he took his seat in Parliament. They sat over dinner for almost three hours and Margarita was looking much less tired at eleven than she had at eight.

They left the dining room and went right upstairs to bed. “Nicholas
mío,”
she breathed as he got in beside her. “How I have missed you.”

“And I you,” he returned, his hands moving over the remembered perfection of her body. She opened for him, like a flower to the sun, and he came into her without delay, his eyes closing as he held her close. The peace of being with her again. It was only Margarita who could do this for him. They moved together in perfect unison.

For Margarita it was sheer heaven, being with Nicholas again like this. When he said, afterwards, his cheek against hers, “There is nothing in the world as good as this,” she sighed with contentment.

“I love you,” she said softly.

That night, curled against the security of Nicholas, she slept more soundly than she had for a month.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

O never talk again to me

Of northern climes and British ladies.

Byron

The first thing Nicholas did was to take Margarita out and buy her a whole new wardrobe. They went to a very exclusive shop in Bond Street that Nicholas had heard recommended by Catherine Alnwick. Margarita protested when she realized the amount of money Nicholas was prepared to spend. “I am sick of seeing you in that everlasting black,” he said firmly. “And the dresses you had Mrs. Burgess make at Winslow will not do for London. If I run out of blunt I’ll simply sell another painting.”

Madame Fentôn had been thrilled to have the young Countess of Winslow for a customer and had known exactly the styles and colors that would most suit her dark-eyed, delicate-boned beauty. Margarita and Nicholas left the shop laden down with boxes and Madame Fentôn promised to send those that needed alteration to Berkeley Square later in the week.

The Duchess of Melford was giving a ball three days after Margarita’s arrival, and Nicholas thought that this would be an auspicious occasion for introducing his wife to the ton. The ball would be one of the greatest crushes of the Season, and Margarita would have an opportunity to see most of the people who mattered in London society without, herself, being the center of interest. Many women would have relished a more spectacular entrance into society, but his wife, Nicholas knew, was not one of them.

Margarita was nervous but she made a gallant effort to disguise her apprehension from Nicholas. She had very little experience with large parties and was not sure how the evening would proceed, but, as she told herself prosaically, the only way
to find out would be to go.

Nicholas’s eyes lit up when he saw her, and she knew that she looked well. She wore a gossamer gown of shell-pink gauze with a scooped neckline that showed off the astonishingly delicate loveliness of her throat, shoulders, and arms. Her hair was drawn smoothly off her face and dressed in a heavy knot on the top of her head. A few tendrils had been allowed to escape and fall artistically about her neck. Nicholas put her cloak carefully around her shoulders. “You look beautiful, sweetheart,” he said encouragingly. “Pink suits you.”

She turned to look at him. “And you look very handsome, my lord.” She inspected his neatly brushed hair closely and then gave a little nod of approval.

He grinned. “I got it cut this afternoon.”

“It looks very nice,” she said sedately, and they went out together to the coach.

There were carriages lined up for almost a quarter of a mile outside the Duke of Melford’s house in Grosvenor Square. They had to wait in the carriage for half an hour before their own vehicle drew up before the splendidly lighted entrance. Once they were inside, they went up the staircase to the wide landing where the duke and duchess were receiving their guests. “The Earl and Countess of Winslow,” the majordomo intoned, and Margarita found her hand being taken by a tall, aristocratic lady of indeterminate middle age, who peered at her curiously and said, “So you are Winslow’s wife. Very happy to meet you, my dear. I do hope you enjoy yourself. It promises to be a sad crush, I fear.”

“Thank you. Your Grace,” Margarita said softly; she smiled a little stiffly, murmured something to the duke, and let Nicholas escort her into the ball-room.

It was a huge, elegant room and it seemed to her to be filled with people. “Do you
know
all of these people?” she asked Nicholas in bewilderment.