The Blood of Roses (4 page)

Aluinn’s reply, muffled against the arch of her throat, was lost as he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

The Southern Route of the Jacobite Army

Derby, September 1745
1

C
atherine Ashbrooke Montgomery bowed her lovely blonde head and dabbed a delicately worked lace handkerchief at the wetness that collected persistently along her lashes. No one in the crowded chapel took notice, or if they did, they smiled with understanding. After all, it was not unusual for a girl to shed a tear or two at the marriage of her brother and her best friend. The speed with which the event had progressed from announcement to pronouncement was, on the other hand, ample reason for heads to shake and tongues to wag in disapproval.

Despite the scandalous circumstances, Harriet Chalmers made a glowingly radiant bride. The gown she wore had been her mother’s and was made of silvered cream satin, flounced and scalloped with tiers of frothing Mechlin lace. Only an extremely acerbic eye would remark how the sweepingly wide side panniers had been adjusted slightly forward on the hips to minimize any possibility of the quilted petticoats not falling quite flat from the narrow waist. Only the stiffly busked, starchly righteous matrons would criticize the blush of color in the pale cheeks or smile slyly at the fact that Harriet’s round hazel eyes never once released their intense hold on the groom’s face.

Catherine had known Harriet for all their respective eighteen years and was well aware of the distress her friend was suffering, but that was not what kept the shine of tears constant in the violet blue of her own eyes. Should anyone have cared to closely analyze her visible signs of agitation, they might have discovered a young woman floundering in a sea of memories that had little to do with Harriet’s wedding and a great deal to do with her own.

“… take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife …”

Catherine heard the words as if they echoed through a long tunnel. Her gaze had been drawn upward to the multipaned stained-glass window that framed the altar. Designed to take advantage of the sunlight, the beams streaming through the glass were tinted red, gold, blue, and green. Dust motes swam lazily in the path of the rays, making it appear as if the honored couple, their heads bowed reverently to receive the final blessings, were kneeling in a pool of colored light. The air was thick and sweet with the smell of perfume. A guest coughed discreetly, another snorted at some whispered comment—or was startled awake by some indignant elbow. The minister looked and sounded very pious as he droned the appropriate words, and Catherine found herself staring at his long, bony hands, wondering why they seemed to be pushing through water, not air.

“… pronounce you man and wife.”

Damien and Harriet stood and smiled at one another, bathing in the glow of love in each other’s eyes. The guests began to stir, to murmur among themselves and adjust a wrinkled skirt or smooth a ruffled collar. In a few moments they would file out of the chapel and follow the clinging couple along the sun-washed path to where the coaches waited to transport the party from the village to the Chalmers’s estate. To celebrate the wedding of his only child, Wilbert Chalmers had spared no expense in food, entertainment, and lavish decorations. The couple would remain at the estate overnight, then depart for London in the morning, where they would enjoy a brief but undoubtedly blissful holiday before duty called Damien back to his offices.

How different from her own experience, Catherine thought bitterly. Strained words exchanged in a library, a sullen retreat to her rooms to pack for a hasty, furtive departure from Rosewood Hall. Her “blissful” wedding tour had consisted of a two-week test of endurance in the back of a cramped, airless carriage; bouncing over military roads that had never been designed with elegant coach wheels in mind; dodging patrols of militia; pitting her wits against a husband who seemed determined to make her suffer every miserable step of the way.

“Catherine … Catherine, wasn’t it simply wonderful?” The new Mrs. Damien Ashbrooke fluttered across the vestibule of the church like a butterfly in flight, her skirts flaring out behind her, a fountain of satin ribbons streaming from her hair. Beaming happily, she took up Catherine’s gloved hands in her own and lowered her voice dramatically, speaking without moving her lips more than a quiver. “Did you see me almost swoon when the reverend started going on about wifely proprieties and motherhood? I swear I could feel every pair of eyes on me, hear everyone start to whisper at once.”

“If they were staring,” Catherine assured her, “it was because you made such a ravishing bride. And if they want to whisper, let them. They’re just being jealous old cows because you happened to snare the heart of the handsomest bachelor in England.”

This last was said with a conspiratorial smile as her brother Damien joined them. He returned her hug and kiss, then, with an elaborate flourish, produced five glittering gold sovereigns from the pocket of his white satin waistcoat.

“Never let it be said an Ashbrooke does not honor his debts,” he said, presenting the coins to Catherine. “However disputatious the terms of the wager might be.”

Catherine and Harriet exchanged a frown.

“Perhaps it comes from the pressure of having to relinquish his freedom,” Catherine suggested blithely. “As I recall, he vowed to remain unencumbered until his fortieth birthday.”

“Thirty, as I recall,” Damien corrected her. “And since I am only six years shy of that goal, the pressure, as you call it, is not too dreadfully overwhelming. Nevertheless, it was you who made the grim prediction that I would not be enjoying my bachelorhood much longer and you who backed the challenge with five gold crowns. To that end, dear Kitty, I concede the wager, and most happily so.”

Uncaring of whose eyebrows might be launched skyward, Damien circled his arms around Harriet’s waist and drew her into a loving embrace. His kiss left the bride with a deep enough blush to make the smattering of freckles across her nose glow through the layers of rice powder.

Harriet’s self-conscious reprimand and Damien’s good-natured retort could not help but put a smile on Catherine’s face. Their happiness was obvious, their love for each other open and eager and completely devoid of any doubts or hesitation. They suited one another in character. Harriet was shy and unprepossessing, utterly devoted to Damien’s wants and needs; Damien was strong and resilient, a caring, gentle, and considerate man who would move heaven and earth to ensure his wife’s contentment. He had not inherited Lord Ashbrooke’s philandering ways. He had certainly sown his share of wild oats, for he was lean and handsome and elegantly suited to delivering lengthy and articulate courtroom dissertations. There had been rumors of a mistress in London and another in Coventry, but to Catherine’s knowledge, he had relegated them both to memory the instant he had wakened to the fact that Harriet Chalmers was no longer a braided, freckled brat in pinafores and ruffled pantalets.

Marriage would suit him, Catherine decided. So would fatherhood.

She looked down at the five gold coins nestled against the gray of her kidskin gloves and remembered that there had been a second part to the wager, double or nothing, that she would win a proposal of marriage from Hamilton Garner before the clock had struck twelve to welcome in her nineteenth year. Did it constitute a win, she wondered, that she had found herself married within the required time limit, even if to another man?

Smiling, she pressed the gold coins into Harriet’s hand. “For my nephew,” she whispered. “Or niece … whichever fate allows.”

“Fate has nothing to do with it,” Damien announced firmly. “I have decided we shall have three sons and three daughters, in that order, and that, by God, is the way it shall be.”

“Really?” Catherine mused. “And if your orders should go awry and you are blessed with only daughters?”

“Then we shall name them all Catherine and send them out as a plague upon the world.”

Laughing, the girls each took a proffered arm and allowed him to escort them out of the church vestibule and into the crisp autumn air. They were instantly surrounded by well-wishers, and Catherine, taking advantage of the opportunity, slipped away from the crowd unnoticed. She was in no mood to engage in verbal fencing matches with the staunch-bosomed matrons who circled like vultures, waiting to glean the latest tidbits of gossip and scandal. Back-stabbing had always been the order of the day, and Catherine had never felt it so keenly or gleefully directed between her own slender shoulders as she had since her return to Derby six weeks ago. Mistress Ashbrooke had acquired a good many enemies and rivals in her vainglorious climb to the top of the social ladder; they were only too eager to collect their due now with a vengeance.

That she had dared to show her face in Derby again after being handed over as prize chattel following a duel between two men who were supposedly her lovers had shocked the community to its core. That she had returned alone might well have made Catherine the laughingstock of ten parishes if not for the fact she had arrived home in the luxury of a gleaming new coach-and-four and that it had required a second coach and six liveried servants to manage the trunks and baggage crammed to overflowing with proof of the wealth and generosity of her new husband.

With Damien steadfast by her side, Catherine had answered the endless rounds of questions. Indeed, Raefer Montgomery was a wealthy man. Indeed, he was an extremely successful businessman; his name and reputation were lauded in shipping circles, for he was a major dealer in the lucrative export trade with the colonies. He was in the colonies now, in fact, and yes, it was a shame he could not have postponed his trip, but at least he had insisted that Catherine return to Rosewood Hall to dispel any concerns her family and friends might have over the marriage.

Sir Alfred’s guilt, if he had experienced any pangs at all, was erased the instant he saw his daughter bedecked in silks and satins and muffled in a cloak of white ermine. Damien had done his part to embellish Montgomery’s character and attributes to the point where Sir Alfred had begun to think of his decision that fateful night as nothing less than providentially brilliant. His own reputation would not suffer from acquiring so influential and enterprising a son-in-law, nor would the Ashbrooke fortune—instantly invested in Montgomery Shipping. If anyone was surprised to learn the extent of her husband’s wealth, it was Catherine; she had assumed it to be as fictitious as his name.

It was just one of the many absurdities she discovered being married to Alexander Cameron: having everything she had ever wanted yet having nothing at all.

She had hoped Damien’s wedding would snap her out of her lethargy, but it became apparent early in the evening that no such miracle would occur. The men, powdered and wigged and prancing about the dance floor like satin-clad harlequins, only made her remember the evenings at Achnacarry more vividly. There the men dressed in tartans and leather, and when they danced, they did so with the pure, reckless joy of celebrating life. Here the women wore frozen smiles and held their noses in a decided tilt upward, their bosoms straining over stomachers laced so tightly it was a wonder they could breathe at all. In the Highlands, the women laughed as heartily as the men; they ate and argued with as much relish as their menfolk and drank the potent
uisque baugh
without batting a single, demure eyelash.

Her patience dwindling proportionately with the amount of champagne in her glass, Catherine excused herself early from the celebrations and slipped away for a quiet walk alone in the gardens. In half an hour or so the serious flirtations would be well under way, partners targeted and victims ensnared, and no one would miss her if she slipped up the rear staircase to her bedchamber. Both Damien and Harriet would understand and forgive her; anyone else could leap fully clothed into the duck pond for all she cared.