Wedding of the Season (25 page)

The valet retrieved the gray afternoon frock coat he’d been wearing earlier and held it open for him.

“Then back to London,” Will went on as he slid his arms into the sleeves. “Or we could take a ship out of Plymouth to Calais, if that would be quicker. I don’t know. Whatever is the most efficient way to reach Paris in time to catch the Orient Express to Constantinople.”

“The Orient Express departs from Paris on Wednesdays and Sundays, sir. I believe there is also a connecting train from Calais to Paris.”

“The things you know amaze me, Aman. Now,” he added, starting out of the bedroom. “We’ll take the Orient Express to Constantinople, a ship to Cairo, and a
dahabiyeh
up the Nile to Thebes.” He opened his dispatch case, looking for ready money. “The trick is that we have to arrive before October 1. Have you got all that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He counted out pound notes, pulled his money case out of his pocket and shoved notes into its leather interior, and replaced the case in the breast pocket of his jacket. “I think I’ll still have time to dine with Sir Edmund this evening, but be ready to depart from here by nine, so we can catch the ten o’clock express out of Victoria. Best to hurry over to Cook’s, and then start packing.”

Aman nodded and opened the door. Will walked through it, then stopped. “And tell them we’ll need to book passage for three people.”

“Three, sir?”

“Three,” he said firmly, refusing to believe otherwise. With that, Will went down to the Savoy’s opulent lobby to request a taxi, and when it arrived, he ordered it to take him to the Faculty Office, where he allowed his hopes free rein and applied for a special license to wed. From there, he went to Lloyd’s, then Fortnum and Mason, and then Bond Street. He then returned to the Savoy, changed for dinner, and met Sir Edmund in the hotel’s main dining room. Though it was enjoyable to see his mentor again, and exhilarating to share the news from Thebes, Will was happy when the meal ended, for he was eager to be on his way back to Trix. But after bidding farewell to Sir Edmund, Will did not take the lift back up to his rooms to fetch Aman. Instead, he left the Savoy. He still had one thing to do before he returned to Devonshire to win the woman he loved. He needed to find a courtesan.

D
uring the week that followed Will’s departure for London and her own return to Stafford St. Mary,
forlorn
proved to be a fairly accurate description of Beatrix’s mood.

She tried to tell herself it was because of the tedious details of canceling her wedding. It was customary for invitations to be sent and gifts to be received only within the fortnight preceding the wedding day, so thankfully Beatrix was spared the obligation of sending letters of regret and returning presents after this broken engagement. However, consideration for her friends demanded a brief confirmation of the news by letter.

Society papers were already discussing the fact that Lady Beatrix Danbury’s engagement was off. Because she’d been at Pixy Cove, she’d been shielded from the gossip during the first few weeks following her broken engagement, but now that she was back in Stafford St. Mary, the humiliating news seemed to be everywhere. She saw heads together when she came into church on Sunday, she heard conversations cease when she walked into a card party on Tuesday, she felt speculative gazes on her as she visited shops in the High Street on Thursday. The fact that she had failed to secure not one but two handsome and eligible dukes in her lifetime, and that the return of duke number one had surely been the cause of duke number two’s departure, was information discussed ad nauseam in all the society pages. The news, Beatrix had no doubt, had been greeted with jubilation and relief by marriage-minded debutantes throughout England and America.

Though she tried not to care, Beatrix found being fodder for the scandal sheets infuriating and humiliating, especially when she read the comments of Mrs. Delilah Dawlish, gossip columnist for the society newspaper
Talk of the Town
. Every time she read the woman’s oft-repeated refrain: “Broken engagements seems to be the pattern of her life, my dears!” she wanted to shred the paper and Mrs. Dawlish into little pieces. The speculations about whether she’d been the one to jilt or be jilted were tiresome, Eugenia’s wailing about their family being the subject of all this gossip was aggravating, and with Julia’s departure for the Continent, Beatrix was left with no one in Stafford St. Mary whose sense of humor could help her shrug it all off.

She packed up the beautiful wedding dress Vivian had designed for her, only one or two of her tears staining its lovely white silk. She gave it to the vicar’s wife to be donated to the next village girl whose banns were posted, a girl who would no doubt be thrilled to wear it.

As etiquette demanded, she arranged for the gifts Aidan had given her during their engagement to be returned to him—a book on the workings of Parliament, an intricately carved ivory fan she’d once admired in a shop window, and a silver locket with her father’s picture inside, though she did take her father’s picture out before packing up the locket. She sent these gifts to Trathen Leagh, Aidan’s estate in Cornwall, along with his letters. Her letters to him had been returned to her already, and she took those to the storage rooms in the attic. She took the time to read them before she put them away, and as she did, she realized why it had been so easy for her heart to return to Will when her head had tried to push her to Aidan.

Her letters and his had been full of news, replies to questions about their mutual health, their families and friends, talk of what they would do with the gardens at the various estates or amusements they would enjoy during their seasons in town, but neither his letters nor hers contained anything remotely passionate. Reading it all now, she felt a hint of the same warm affection and fondness she’d always felt, and she knew that was all she would ever have felt for him. Unlike Julia, she had never found any aspect of Aidan’s character jarring or irritating, and if Will had never come back, she and Aidan would have shared a pleasant, nice, and deadly dull life together.

Mere compatibility and fondness, she now realized, were not enough for her. She’d tried to believe otherwise, and had she married Aidan, she would have made the best of things, and she might never have remembered the difference, if Will had not come back.

But he had come back, and now the difference between what she’d had with him and what Aidan had offered her stood in such stark contrast, they were like black and white. Yet she knew she was somewhere between those two extremes, and with Will, there never seemed to be any half shades or half measures. There never seemed to be middle ground or compromise. Once you jumped off the cliff, you jumped, and there was no turning back.

But what if he proved himself?
a little voice whispered. She tried to shut it out, but it persisted, whispering teasing possibilities.
What if he stayed and made a life here? What if he showed her that he could stick with things at home? What if he began to take his ducal responsibilities seriously?

Maybe then, she thought, maybe then she’d take the risk. But it was silly to wish for that, she knew. Will had never been like that, and never would be.

She stared out the attic window at the lane leading to the Stafford Road. How many times had she looked out her bedroom window just like this, waiting for Will? Waiting for him to come home from Eton. Then from Cambridge. Then from the Continent. Waiting for him to declare his love. Waiting for him to propose. Waiting for him to marry her. Waiting for him to come home from Egypt. And now, waiting for him to come back from London.

All the years of her life, she’d felt as if she’d been chasing heaven, thinking she’d found it, only to watch it slip away again. She was not going to wait for Will, because it wasn’t enough for heaven to come waltzing by with a few words of love and a few weeks of courtship in between seasons on another continent. Heaven also had to stick around for more than a month or two at a time, and Will had never been the sticking-around sort.

She had her own life to think of, a life that seemed rather in limbo. Her first post as an illustrator was over, it seemed, but she would find another. She didn’t know how she would deal with the objections of her family, but she’d find a way. Paul, she supposed, could be persuaded to her point of view, given the other ladies of their acquaintance who had engaged in various professions. Eugenia would probably never accept it, but that was just too bad. Beatrix liked her newfound profession, and she had no intention of giving it up. She wasn’t like her mother—she wasn’t going to go running off with some man and disgrace the family, but neither was she going to sit around waiting for a husband to provide her with an enjoyable, worthwhile life.

She turned away from the window thinking to go downstairs, but her eye caught on a pair of steamer trunks and a pair of valises, luggage that had been brand-new six years ago, bought to hold her trousseau during her honeymoon with Will. Above it, another set of luggage, for another honeymoon and another man. The first set, she thought wistfully, had been packed with more innocence and joy than the second set.

She’d loved Will for most of her life, but she had no intention of falling back in love with him. If she did, she’d be hurt again as she’d been hurt before. Last time, it had almost destroyed her. This time, she just wasn’t willing to take the risk.

Chapter Eighteen

B
eatrix was in the garden, cutting late roses, when Will arrived at Danbury the following afternoon. Eugenia led him to the library window and pointed out where she stood by the arbor, then she sat down in the chair nearest that particular view.

Keeping an eye on them, he thought with amused exasperation. That was all right, as long as she didn’t intend to be like Antonia’s maid and plant herself outside Trix’s door tonight.

He walked outside and made his way through the potager to the rose garden. There he paused at the edge, smiling at the sight of her amid the roses. In her simple shirtwaist and skirt with an apron over them, a big straw hat on her head, and a basket of long-stemmed roses over her arm, she looked just like what she was: an English country girl doing the flowers. But Trix had never been an ordinary English girl. She’d always been
his
girl. When they were growing up, until he’d lost her, he’d always taken that fact for granted. He never would again, at least not until they’d been married about fifty years or so. And he was determined to marry her, determined to find a way for their two worlds to combine into one shared life, determined to make her see that they belonged together no matter what country they were in. But she had to want it, too, and that was going to be the tricky part. Especially since Cook’s had been unable arrange an itinerary with any extra time in Devonshire. He had only tonight to win her over.

As he came closer, she looked up, and when she saw him, she nearly dropped her garden shears. “Wi-ill!”

He stopped on the path, as surprised as she sounded, for he’d just heard that wobbly little hiccup in her voice, and hope rose within him in a powerful wave. He had a chance. He knew he had a chance.

She didn’t smile at him as he came to stand beside her. When he reached her side, she tugged nervously at the wisp of hair at her neck with one garden-gloved hand and returned her attention to the rosebush.

“So, you’re back,” she said the obvious in an offhand sort of way, as if trying to show him she didn’t care tuppence about the fact, but it was too late. He’d heard that little hiccup in her voice, and she couldn’t take it back. Trix still loved him in spite of everything. He began to laugh. Damned if that wasn’t some kind of miracle.

She looked at him, a puzzled little frown etching between her brows. “Why are you laughing?”

He smiled. “I’m just . . . glad to see you. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Of course,” she said primly, snipping roses.

“I missed you.” He leaned closer to her. “I think you missed me, too.”

“If I missed you every time you went away, I’d spend my whole life miserable. I’ve learned my lesson about that.”

He knew he had to tell her of his imminent departure and his intentions before he attempted to put his plans for tonight into action, but as excited as he was to relay the news that was sending him back to Egypt, the words seemed to choke him as he tried to force them out. “I have something to show you,” he said, and pulled the telegram out of his pocket.

She pulled off her garden gloves and set them on the grass with her shears and her basket before she took the sheet of paper from him and unfolded it.

“You found Tut?” she cried excitedly, her gaze scanning the lines of the telegram.

“Possibly. We don’t know yet if it’s Tutankhamen.”

“Still, there’s something there, isn’t there? Something big, something important. Right?” She looked up, and when he nodded, she began to laugh. “Heavens, you were right after all. You were right. This means—” She stopped, suddenly appreciating what it did mean. Lowering her gaze, she read the telegram again, and he watched her face as her excitement for him faded away. She swallowed hard. “You’re leaving, of course,” she said without looking at him.

“Yes, Trix,” he said gently. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? So soon?”

He heard her surprise and pain. His hopes rose another notch, even as her pain hurt him, too. “I have to, if I’m to arrive in Thebes by the first of October. My train from Stafford St. Mary departs at noon, and if I don’t make that train, I miss the connecting train from Exeter to Dover. If that happens, I miss the day’s ship to Calais, which delays my arrival in Paris, and I miss the Orient Express to Constantinople—”

“The Orient Express?” she cried, her face twisting at the mention of the train they were supposed to take together for their honeymoon six years ago. “You’re taking the Orient Express?”

“It’s the fastest way to Constantinople.” He paused, leaning closer to her. “Want to come?”

Her face froze. Her pleasure at his triumph was gone, her pain at his impending departure was gone. Her face was a mask. “No,” she answered, and thrust the telegram at him.

He shrugged, pretending a nonchalance he didn’t feel in the least. “It’s just as well. Since we’re not married, it would make quite a scandal if we ran off together. Unless you’ve changed your mind about marrying me?”

“If I did, would you stay?”

He took a deep breath. “No.”

She bent down to pick up her shears. “Then I haven’t changed my mind.” She resumed snipping roses, but it seemed haphazard, with no regard for the quality of the blossoms.

“If you keep that up,” he said, watching her, “that bush will be naked.”

She stopped. “Since you’re leaving tomorrow, I assume you came here to say good-bye?”

“Actually, no. I was hoping to do that later. I came to see if you might be willing to go on one more midnight adventure with me.”

“Indeed?” She didn’t ask what he had in mind. Instead, she knelt on the grass, dropped her shears into her basket, and began gathering the roses she’d cut.

“This adventure is a little bit different from the ones we’ve had in the past,” he explained. “For this one, you have to come to my house.”

“Your house?” She paused and looked up at him. He waited, watching as the implications sank in and a pink flush came into her cheeks. “I see,” she said, and resumed her task. “A repeat of the other night?”

“A bit like that, with one exception.” He knelt on the grass and grasped her hands in his, and when she looked into his face, he said, “This time I want to finish what we started.”

“Do you?” Her voice was cool, but that was a pose. He knew it when her tongue darted out to nervously lick her lips and she turned her face away.

“I think you know what I mean.” He wanted to take her in his arms right here and now, pull her down into the grass with him and persuade her with kisses, but he couldn’t. He darted a look over his shoulder, but he couldn’t tell if Eugenia was still sitting by the window because of the glare off the glass. Still, it didn’t matter whether he could actually see her. He and Trix had years of experience with this sort of thing, and he’d rather developed a sixth sense about it. He could feel Eugenia’s watchful gaze boring into his back even from here.

“Beatrix.” When he said her name, she tried to pull her hands away, but he held them fast, drew a deep breath, and rolled the dice. “I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I think you know that. I want you, and after that night at Angel Cove, I think it’s safe to say you want me just as much.”

She lifted her chin a notch, but she still didn’t quite look at him. “You’re the one who didn’t want it,” she said, a little quiver in her voice. “I practically threw myself at you the other night, and you . . . you stopped.”

“I told you, I was being responsible. But . . .” He paused, trying to find a delicate way to say this. Unfortunately there was none. He leaned closer, keeping his voice low, even though there was no one within earshot. “There are ways to prevent a baby. Ways better than the one I used the other night.”

“Oh.” The blush in her cheeks deepened to a rosy pink, and as she caught her lower lip between her teeth, he knew she was wavering. He waited, but when several moments went by and she didn’t speak, he began to feel hope giving way to desperation. The thought of going to Thebes without her, of the eight lonely months to come, seemed unbearable.

“I’ll be gone a long time,” he said. “And before I go, I want this adventure with you. I’ll be wholly honest here. I intend to ply you with champagne, take shameless advantage of you, and make mad, passionate love to you. I’m hoping to persuade you to marry me and come with me tomorrow.”

“You mean elope?”

“Yes. It’s only fair to tell you that although I applied for a special license while I was in London, we won’t able to pick it up. We have to take the train out of Exeter straight to Dover, which means we’ll either have to marry on the ship across the channel, or wait until we reach Egypt. Either way, it will still make a scandal.”

“And you think I would agree to disgrace my family by eloping with you?”

“I’m hoping you’ll decide it’s worth it.”

She looked at him, but he couldn’t read anything in her dark eyes. “And if I refuse?”

“I’ll come back next year and try again.”

She sniffed, not seeming particularly impressed by that. “If you come back next year.”

“It’s all right if you don’t come tonight,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Because I am not giving up. Not this time. Say no, and I’ll be right back here on your doorstep come June.” He paused, then added, “But June is an awfully long way off, and if you want to come on this adventure with me before I leave, I’ll meet you by the lodge gates at midnight. Will you come?”

She stared down at her lap for what seemed an eternity before she replied. “Yes, Will. I’ll come.”

“You will?”

“Yes.” She pulled her hands from his, picked up her basket of roses, and stood up. “I like champagne.”

D
espite her promise to meet him, he wasn’t sure she would, and when he saw her crossing the stretch of lawn that separated the park of Sunderland from that of Danbury, he dared to let his hopes for a future with her rise higher. He straightened away from the gate, and went to meet her.

She was wearing riding boots and those Turkish trousers, along with a dark, hooded cloak, and the hood of the cloak shadowed her face, preventing him from seeing her expression. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked as he halted in front of her and bent down, trying to look her full in the face.

“Yes,” she answered, and pushed back the hood of her cloak. “I’m sure.”

“You don’t want to back out?”

She smiled a little. “Shy at the jump, you mean? Stop at the edge of the cliff?” She shook her head. “No.”

“All right, then. C’mon.” Needing no further persuasion, he grabbed her hand and led her across the park and through the grounds to the house. He’d left the south door unlatched, and he took her in through that entrance, across the south wing, and up to his bedroom. He’d already prepared everything, but after shutting the door behind them, he lowered the flame of the lamp a little bit, shifted the bottle of champagne to another angle in the ice bucket, and pushed the plate of fruit and cheese a bit farther back on his dressing table, feeling strangely nervous. Perhaps because on all their previous adventures, there had been certain rules, and tonight those rules were gone.

He spied the black velvet envelope he’d bought in London. Stupid, he thought, and picked it up. He should have put this by the bed.

“What is that?” she asked as he walked past her, and he stopped. One really didn’t discuss these things with anyone, particularly not women, but she had the right to know. “They are called condoms.” He opened the black velvet packet lined with red silk, and pulled out one of the flattened rubber disks inside. “They . . . ahem . . . prevent a woman from becoming pregnant,” he said. “I bought them in London.”

“Heavens.” She took it out of his hand to examine it more closely, understandably curious. “Where does one find these?”

“Brothels. Prostitutes.” He took it back from her. “Not that I went to a prostitute. I mean, I did, but not for . . . not for that.” He waved the condom. “I went for this. I mean . . . God,” he choked, shoving the condom back into its envelope and tossing the envelope onto the bed. “I feel like I’m seventeen again and I’ve just come home from Eton and made the amazing discovery that you developed breasts while I was away. I can’t seem to say a single intelligent word to you right now.”

That made her laugh, but he did not feel like laughing at all just now. Doubts assailed him. “No going back,” he felt impelled to point out. “Once it’s done, Trix, it can’t be undone.”

“I know.” She began unbuttoning her cloak, still smiling, and her composure made him even more ill at ease. He shifted his weight, suddenly at a loss for what to do next, and he realized he’d never actually seduced Trix before, not like this, not with such blatant, lascivious intent. She’d already refused to marry him, seemed not the least bit inclined to change her mind and elope with him tomorrow. And the stakes were so damned high. Maybe this was a mistake. Taking a woman’s virtue when you weren’t married to her and you were about to leave the country was a mighty irresponsible thing to do.

He closed his eyes for a second, drawing a profound, shaky breath.

“Nervous?”

Her question caused him to open his eyes. “Yes,” he admitted. “You?”

“No.” Her smile widened, and then for no accountable reason, she started to laugh. “I like that you’re nervous.”