Miss Winthorpe's Elopement (13 page)

She laughed with little confidence and no mirth. ‘It is a pity I was not there to thank him, his faith in my emotional stability has always meant so much to me.’

‘What happened when you had your Season to give him such ideas?’

‘It was nothing, really.’

‘I do not believe you.’

She shook her head. ‘I was a foolish girl…’

He stepped farther into the room, moving toward her without thinking. ‘You might have been impetuous. But I cannot imagine you a fool. Tell me the story, and we will never speak of it again.’

‘Very well.’ She sighed. ‘The truth about my come-out—and then you will see what a ninny you have
married. I have always been awkward in crowds, more comfortable with books than with people. But my father admired my studiousness and did nothing to encourage me to mix with others my age. It was not until I was seventeen, and he sought to give me a Season, that the problems of this strategy became apparent.’

Adam pulled a chair close to hers, sat down beside her, and nodded encouragingly.

‘Mother was long past, and there was little my father or brother could do to help me prepare for my entrance into society. Father engaged a companion for the sake of propriety, but the woman was a fifty-year-old spinster. She knew little of fashion and nothing of the ways of young ladies, other than that they needed to be prevented from them. I was more than a little frightened of her. I suspect she increased the problems, rather than diminishing them.’

She paused and he wondered if she meant to leave the story at that. He said, ‘So you had your come-out, and no one offered. Or were you unable to find someone to suit yourself?’

She shook her head. ‘Neither is the case, I’m afraid. Any young girl with a dowry the size of mine could not help but draw interest. Father dispensed with the fortune hunters, and encouraged the rest. And at the end of the summer, there was a young man who seemed to suit. He was a lord of no particular fortune, but he seemed genuine in his affection for me.’ She looked up at him, puzzled. ‘It was so easy, when I was with him, to behave
as the other girls did. The crowds were not so daunting. I grew to look to the parties and balls with anticipation, not dread. And I did quite enjoy the dancing…’ Her voice trailed away again.

She had been in love. Adam felt a bolt of longing at the idea that his wife had known happiness, before she had known him.

She came back into the present and smiled at him, bright and false. ‘And then I overheard my beloved explaining to a girl I thought a friend that, while he loved this other girl above all things, he would marry me for my money, and that was that.

‘A sensible girl might have ignored the fact and continued with what would have been a perfectly acceptable union. Or broken it off quietly and returned to try again the next Season. But not I. I returned to the room and told the couple, and all within earshot, that I thought them as two-faced as Janus for denying their hearts with their actions, and that I would rather die than yoke myself to a man that only pretended to love me for the sake of my money. Then I turned on my heel, left the assembly rooms and refused all further invitations. My mortification at what I had done was beyond bearing. I had not wanted to draw attention to myself. I only hoped to find someone who would want me for who I was. Was it so much to ask? But my brother assured me that I had shamed the family. No one would have me, now I’d made such a cake of myself.’ She smiled, wistfully. ‘The last thing I should have done, to achieve my ends,
was behave in a way that, I’m sorry to say, is very much in my character.’

Adam felt the rage boiling in his heart and wished that he could find the man who had been so callous to her, and give him what he deserved. Then he would pay a visit to her brother, and give Hector a dose of the same.

She swallowed and lifted her chin. ‘Of course, you can see that I have learned my lesson. I expected no such foolishness when I married you. If we must hold a ball and make nice in front of your friends, so be it. As long as there is no pretence between us that the event means something more than it truly does.’ She lowered her eyes and he thought for a moment he could see tears shining in them, although it might have been the reflection of the afternoon light on her spectacles.

And he reached out spontaneously and seized her hand, squeezing the fingers in his until she looked up at him. ‘I would take it all back if I could. Throw the invitations on the fire before they could be sent. You must know that I have no desire to force you into behaviours that will only bring back unpleasant memories. It was never my intention to make you uncomfortable or unhappy. And if there is anything I can do to help…’

Perhaps he sounded too earnest, and she doubted his sincerity. For when she looked at him, her face was blank and guarded. ‘Really, Adam. You have done more than enough. Let it be.’

But damn it all, he did not want to let it be. He
wanted to fix it. ‘The ball will go on. There is no stopping it, I suppose. But in exchange, I will do something for you.’

She was staring at him as though the only thing she wished was that he leave her alone. What could he possibly do? It was not as if he could promise her a trip to the shops. She had made it clear enough what she thought of them, when he had forced her to go the first time. And if her mind had changed and she wished such things, she could afford to purchase them for herself.

And then, the idea struck him. ‘At the ball, we will announce that it is our farewell from society, for a time. We will be repairing to our country home. There, you will have all the solitude you could wish for. It is Wales, for heaven’s sake. Beautiful country, and the place where my heart resides, but very much out of the way of London society. Your books can be sent on ahead, to greet you in the library when we arrive. Between the house and the grounds, there is so much space that you can go for days without seeing a soul. Dead silence and no company but your books, for as long as you like.’

Her eyes sparkled at the sound of the word ‘library’. And she seemed to relax a bit. ‘This will be our only party, then?’

‘For quite some time. I will make no more rash pronouncements in public without consulting you first.’

‘And we may go the very next day?’ She seemed far more excited by the prospect of rustication, than she did by the impending ball.

‘If you wish it.’ He smiled. ‘And we will see if you prefer it to London. But I warn you, it is frightfully dull at Felkirk. Nothing to do but sit at home of an evening, reading before the fire.’

She was smiling in earnest now. And at him. ‘Nothing to do but read. Really, your Grace. You are doing it far too brown.’

‘You would not be so eager if I told you about the holes in the roof. The repairs are not complete, as of yet. But the library is safe and dry,’ he assured her. ‘And the bedrooms.’

And suddenly, her cheeks turned a shade of pink that, while very fetching, clashed with the silk on the walls. To hide her confusion, she muttered, ‘That is good to know. The damage was confined, then, to some unimportant part of the house?’

And it was his turn to feel awkward. ‘Actually, it was to the ballroom. When I left, it was quite unusable.’

And her blush dissolved into a fit of suppressed giggles. ‘It devastates me to hear it, your Grace.’

‘I thought it might. I will leave you to your work, then. But if you need help in the matter of the upcoming event, you will call upon me?’

She smiled again. ‘Of course.’

‘Because I am just across the hall.’ He pointed.

‘I know.’ She had forgiven him. At least for now. He turned to leave her, and glanced with puzzlement at a lone remaining Meissen figurine, turned face to the wall and occupying valuable space on his wife’s bookshelf. He shook his head at the carelessness of the servants,
and turned it around, so that it faced properly into the room. ‘I will send someone to have this removed, if it annoys you.’

She shook her head. ‘Do not bother. I have grown quite used to it.’

T
he night of the ball had finally arrived, and Adam hoped that his wife was not too overwrought by the prospect. He had nerves enough for both of them.

Clarissa would be there, of course. He combed his hair with more force than was necessary. Another meeting with her was unavoidable. He could not hold a party and invite his friend, only to exclude his wife. There was very little to do about Clarissa without cutting Tim out of his social circle entirely. And he could hardly do that. They had been friends since childhood. Tim’s unfortunate marriage to the shrew, and Adam’s regrettable behaviour over her, had done nothing to change it, although Adam almost wished it had. It would have been so much easier had Tim called him out and shamed him in public, or at least cut him dead. But the veneer of civility, when they were together at a social gathering, was a torture much harder to endure.

He hoped that the presence of Penny, and success of the evening, would cool the look in Clarissa’s eye.

There was a change in the light that fell upon the table, and a discreet clearing of a throat.

He looked up into the mirror to see his wife standing in the connecting doorway behind him.

He didn’t realise he had been holding his breath until he felt it expel from his lungs in a long, slow sigh. It was his wife, most certainly. But transformed. The gown was a pale green, and with her light hair and fair skin, she seemed almost transparent. As she came towards him, he imagined he was seeing a spirit, a ghost that belonged to the house, that had been there long before he had come.

And then the light from his lamp touched the gown and the sarsenet fabric shifted in colour from silver to green again, and the silver sequins sparkled on the drape of netting that fell from her shoulder to the floor.

Even her glasses, which had seemed so inappropriate and unfeminine when he first met her, completed the image as the lenses caught the light and threw it back at him, making her eyes shimmer.

His friends would not call her a beauty, certainly. She was most unlike all the other women who were lauded as such. But suddenly it did not matter what his friends might say. It only mattered what he knew in his heart to be true—she looked as she was meant to look. And now that he had removed her from whatever magic realm she had inhabited, he was overcome with the
desire to protect her from the coarse harshness of the world around them.

She had reached his side, and tipped her head quizzically to the side. ‘Is it all right?’

He nodded and smiled. ‘Very much so. You are lovely.’

‘And you are a liar.’ But he could see the faint blush on her cheek as she said it.

‘You’re welcome. It is a most unusual gown. Vaguely Greek, I think, and reminiscent of the Penelope of legend. And therefore, most suitable for you. Are you ready to greet our guests?’

‘Yes.’ But he saw the look in her eyes.

‘And now you are the one who is lying.’

‘I am as ready as I am ever likely to be.’

‘Not quite. There is something missing. I meant to deal with it earlier, but I quite forgot.’

He removed the jewel box from where he had left it in the drawer of his dresser. ‘It seems, in the hurry to marry, that we forgot something. You have no ring.’

‘It is hardly necessary.’

‘I beg to differ. A marriage is not a marriage without a ring. Although the solicitors and banks did not comment, my friends must have noticed.’

She sighed. ‘You do not remember, do you? You gave me a ring, when we were in Gretna. I carry it with me sometimes. For luck.’ She pulled a bent horse nail from her fine silk skirts and slipped it on to her finger. ‘Although perhaps I need the whole shoe for it to be truly lucky. I do not know.’

He stared down at it in horror. ‘Take that from your finger, immediately.’

‘I had not planned to wear it, if that is your concern. It is uncomfortably heavy, and hardly practical.’

He held out his hand. ‘Give it here, this instant. I will dispose of it.’

She closed her hand possessively over it. ‘You will do nothing of the kind.’

‘It is dross.’ He shook his head. ‘No, worse than that. Dross would be better. That is a thing. An object. An abomination.’

‘It is a gift,’ she responded. ‘And, more so, it is mine. You cannot give it me, and then take it back.’

‘I had no idea what I was doing. I was too drunk to think clearly. If I had been sober, I would never have allowed you to take it.’

‘That is not the point,’ she argued. ‘It was a symbol. Of our…’ She was hunting for the right word to describe what had happened in Scotland. ‘Our compact. Our agreement.’

‘But I have no desire for my friends to think I would seal a sacrament with a bent nail. Now that we are in London, I can give you the ring that you by rights deserve.’

She sighed. ‘It is not necessary.’

‘I believe that it is.’

‘Very well, then. Let us get on with it.’

Another proof that his wife was unlike any other woman in London. In his experience, a normal woman would have been eager for him to open the jewel case
on his desk, and beside herself with rapture as he removed the ring. The band was wide, wrought gold, heavy with sapphires, set round with diamonds. ‘Give me your hand.’

She held it out to him, and he slipped it on to her finger.

It looked ridiculous, sitting on her thin white fingers, as though it had wandered from the hand of another and settled in the only place it felt at home. She flexed her hand.

She shook her head. ‘I retract what I said before. In comparison, the horse nail is light. This does not suit.’

‘We can go to the jewellers tomorrow, and get it sized to you.’

‘You do not understand. It fits well enough, but it does not suit me.’

‘It was my mother’s,’ he said. ‘And my grandmother’s before her.’

‘Well, perhaps it would suit, if I were your mother,’ she snapped. ‘But I am your wife. And it does not suit me.’

‘You are my wife, but you are also Duchess of Bellston. And the Duchess wears the ring, in the family colours of sapphire and gold.’

‘
My
mother was happy with a simple gold band,’ she challenged.

‘
Your
mother was not a duchess.’

‘When your mother worked, did she remove the ring, or leave it on? For I would hate to damage it.’

‘Work?

‘Work,’ she repeated firmly.

‘My mother did not work.’

‘But, if you remember our agreement, I do.’ She slipped the ring off her finger and handed it back to him. ‘My efforts here are hardly strenuous, but a large ring will snag in the papers and could get soiled, should I spill ink. It is not a very practical choice.’

‘Practicality has never been an issue,’ he admitted.

‘It is to me. For I am a very practical person.’

‘I am aware of that.’

She looked at the box on the table, which was large enough to hold much more than a single ring. ‘Is there not another choice available that might serve as compromise?’

He re-opened the box, and turned it to her. ‘This is a selection of such jewellry as is at the London address. I dare say there is more, in the lock rooms at Bellston.’

She rejected the simple gold band she saw as being a trifle too plain for even the most practical of duchesses, and chose a moonstone, set in silver. It was easily the least worthy piece in the box, and he wondered why his mother had owned it, for it was unlike any of her other jewellry. His wife ran the tip of her finger lightly along the stone: a cabochon, undecorated, but also unlikely to get in the way of her work. ‘I choose this.’

‘Silver.’ He said it as though it were inferior, but then, at one time, he might have said the same of her, had he not been forced to recognise her. And he would have been proved wrong.

‘At least I will not feel strongly, should I damage it.
And for formal engagements, I will wear your mother’s ring. But not tonight.’ She slipped the moonstone on to her hand, and it glittered eerily.

‘It suits you,’ he conceded.

‘I suspected it would. And it is better, is it not, than if I wore the horse nail?’ She admired the ring on her hand and smiled.

He smiled as well. ‘I feared, for a moment, that you might do it, out of spite.’

‘I am not usually given to act out of spite,’ she said.

He laughed.

‘Well, perhaps, occasionally.’ Then she laughed as well, and surrendered. ‘All right. Frequently. But I shall be most co-operative tonight, if you shall take me to Wales tomorrow.’

‘A bargain, madam.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘Let us climb the stairs and await our guests.’

Whoever had selected the top floor of the house for a ballroom had not made the most practical of choices, but Adam had to admit that the tall windows, front and back, provided a splendid view of London below, and the night sky above. He felt Penny tense as the first guests arrived, and thought to offer her a last chance to return to her room and avoid the evening. But he saw the determined look in her eyes and thought better of it. She meant to hang on, no matter what, although the bows and curtsies of the guests and polite murmurs of ‘your Grace’ were obviously making her uncomfortable.

He reached out and laid a hand on her back, hoping to convey some of his strength to her. She was able to suppress the brief flinch of surprise he could feel, when his fingers touched the bare skin above her gown. And then he felt her slowly relaxing back against his hand, and step ever so slightly closer to him, letting him support and protect her.

He smiled, because it felt good to know that, whatever else she might feel, she trusted him. And it felt good as well, to feel her skin beneath his hand. He shifted and his hand slid along her back, and it was smooth and cool and wonderful to touch. The flesh warmed beneath his hand as the blood flowed to it.

And he found himself wondering, would the rest of her feel the same? If he allowed his fingers to slip under the neckline of her gown, would she pull away in shock, or move closer to him, allowing him to take even greater liberties?

‘Adam? Adam?’

He came back to himself to find his wife staring up at him in confusion. Her eyes shifted slightly, to indicate the presence of guests.

‘Tim and Clarissa, so good to see you.’ He smiled a welcome to his friend and nodded to the woman beside him. ‘Forgive me. My mind was elsewhere.’ He could feel Penny’s nervousness under his hand and drew her closer to him.

And as the introductions droned on, his mind returned to where it had been. It might have been easier
to concentrate, if he did not have the brief memory of her, changing clothes in his bed. She had been very like a surprised nymph in some classic painting. Beautiful in her nakedness, and unaware of the gaze of another. And he had allowed himself to watch her, for even though she was his wife, he had not expected to see that particular sight again.

And now, of all times, he could not get the picture from his head. While the object of the evening was to prove to his social circle that he admired and respected his new wife, it would not do to be panting after her like a lovesick dog. A few dances, a glass of champagne, and he would retire to the card room, to steady his mind with whisky and the dull conversation of his male friends.

It was going well, she reminded herself, over and over again. She had survived the receiving line, and, except for a moment where Adam behaved quite strangely, it had been without incident. Clarissa had been quite incensed that Adam had not paid her a compliment. But he had barely seemed to notice the woman. It gave her hope that perhaps the worst was over, and that she need see no more of Clarissa after tonight.

She looked around her, at the throng of people enjoying the refreshments, and at the simple buffet, which was anything but. There was enough food for an army, if an army wished to subsist on lobster, ice-cream sculptures and liberal amounts of champagne. The orchestra was tuning, and soon dancing would begin.

Adam was surveying the room from her side. ‘You have done well.’

‘Thank you.’

He hesitated. ‘I understand that this was difficult for you.’

‘It was not so bad,’ she lied.

He smiled sympathetically and whispered, ‘It will be over soon, in any case. The sooner we begin the dancing, the sooner they will leave.’

‘We must dance?’ What fresh hell was this?

‘Of course. It is our ball. If we do not dance, they will not.’

‘Oh.’ She had been so convinced that she would embarrass herself with the preparations for the party, or disgrace herself in the receiving line, that she had forgotten there would be other opportunities for error.

He took her hand in his and put his other hand to her waist. ‘I know it goes against your nature,’ he said. ‘But let me lead.’

She remembered not to jump as he touched her, for it would be even more embarrassing to demonstrate again that she was not familiar with the feel of his hands on her body. He seemed unperturbed as he led her out on to the floor. ‘You have nothing to fear, you know. Even if you stumble, no one will dare comment. I certainly shall not.’

She nodded, to reassure herself.

‘Have you waltzed before?’

She could only manage a frantic glance up into his face.

‘It does not matter. The music is lovely, and the step is easy to learn. Relax and enjoy it. One two three, one two three. See. It is not a difficult.’

He was right. It was simple enough, when one had so commanding a partner. In this, at least, she could trust him to lead her right, and so she yielded. And he turned her around the dance floor, smiling as though he enjoyed it.

She tried to match his expression. Perhaps that was the trick of it. She had but to act like she was having a pleasant evening, and people would trouble her no further.

‘You are a very good dancer,’ he remarked. ‘Although not much of a conversationalist. I cannot keep you quiet when we are alone together. Why will you not speak now?’

‘All these people…’ she whispered helplessly.

‘Our guests,’ he answered.

‘Your guests, perhaps, but they are strangers to me.’

‘You met them all in the receiving line just now. And yet they frighten you?’