Marriage Alliance: A charming Regency Romance

by Mira Stables

  He fell silent a little while, wondering what had become of the rough-visaged kindly fellow who had heartened and fed a frightened youngster and then had faded into limbo. Instinctively he had known that any attempt to succour the outlaw could only add to his danger. He hoped that the man had made good his escape to the Americas and had there found a new life for himself.

  He roused himself to refill the girls’ glasses, despite their doubts, assuring them gravely that he had never entertained so sober a pair. Perhaps it was the unaccustomed wine that inspired Deborah to ask her new sister to dance for them. “Just a few steps,” she pleaded, “so that Marc may see for himself how beautiful it is — and not in the least improper as I had been led to believe.”

  It was certainly the champagne, allied to certain other heady delights that had touched her for the first time that night, that prompted Fleur’s consent. “But it will have to be something very slow and stately,” she stipulated, looking thoughtfully at the voluminous folds of her dress. “A pavane,” she decided. “That would be in keeping with the costume. But it will be icy cold in the nursery and I must have music.”

  “No need to disturb yourself, my dear,” said Marcus easily. “It shall be here, and I will play for you, once the covers are drawn, if you will excuse me briefly.”

  While Reeves performed his duties with professional imperturbability, Deborah looked at Fleur owl-eyed. “I do believe he’s going to play his fiddle for you,” she breathed. “He’s not done that for years. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re a witch!”

  Below stairs, Reeves came in with the air of a man who knows much, and is prepared, if suitably approached, to divulge just a hint of what he knows. The cook was cross. Despite his best endeavours, three healthy young people had eaten shamefully little. Reeves smiled at him kindly and spoke portentous words.

  “To them as knows what I does, that’s the best noos I’ve heard this month past. We’ve all known, thanks to that there Betty,” his tone was nicely calculated to depress the pretensions of one so junior and, worse, so undiscriminating as to share her knowledge with the entire domestic staff, “that things weren’t just as they should be.” The austerity with which he had enunciated the final phrase melted. He beamed. “Well now I’ll have my say. Who doesn’t trouble themselves to eat their victuals? Specially such victuals as you provides for ’em, Perry,” he added generously. “Only them as is sickly — which even Miss Deborah can’t be scarcely so described these weeks past but not in the way of eating hearty, and them as is in love — which young master and missus is now, even if they wasn’t afore, and that I’ll swear to.”

  After which triumphant peroration he subsided slightly and informed the housekeeper in an undervoice that things at Blayden might now be expected to look up, which it was time they did, and no mistake.

  It was some little time before Marcus came back to the library, but when he did, he was indeed carrying a violin. His face was rueful. “Sadly neglected,” he told them. “I have done my best with it, and it may endure for one pavane. Shall we adventure?”

  He raised an enquiring eyebrow at Fleur, who, flown with sartorial success and champagne, smiled, nodded, and moved out on to the clear space of floor. It took him a moment or two to get the slow duple rhythm while she waited quietly, marking the beat with one slender foot. Then he began to play an old country air. She nodded him the tiniest acknowledgement and swept into the stately measure.

  Head bent to his instrument, Marcus watched with deep surprise and admiration. He had not expected such artistry. The dance itself was simple enough. A child could have learned it. But the fluid grace with which it was performed, the eloquence of each slight gesture, were a revelation. It seemed to him that the dancer was possessed, to her very fingertips, by her own art. Even, he thought fancifully, to the tiniest tendril of the shining dark hair. Caught up in the rapture of the dance, she had completely forgotten the watchers. It was an exquisite performance — and he was not at all sure that he liked it.

  As she sank in the deep final curtsy Deborah broke the spell with a tiny patter of applause. His wife raised her bowed head with a look in her eyes as of a sleeper awakening and smiled up at him, a child again, looking hopefully for a word of approbation.

  He gave it generously as he took her hands to lift her to her feet. “My dear, you will take Almack’s by storm. Your dancing is quite delightful. I shall certainly have to polish up my own performance if I am not utterly to disgrace my partner. And I had thought myself no mean exponent, either,” he added with a rueful twinkle.

  Her eyes were like stars. “Almack’s!” she breathed. “Will you really take me there?”

  “But of course! It is de rigeur for a bride making her début. If you cannot obtain vouchers for Almack’s you are nobody. Luckily we can rely on my father for that. I believe he calls cousins with Mrs Burrell, and she will undoubtedly bring the other patronesses round her finger.”

  “Soon? Shall we go soon?” she begged, lost in roseate dreams.

  “I thought perhaps we might set out next week and take the journey easily, since we must rely on hirelings. There is no vast hurry. The season has scarce begun. But you will wish to rig yourself out in town finery before you make any formal appearances. At least you need not trouble your head with domestic responsibilities. We must put up at a hotel, since my lodging in the Albany is too small to house us. Next year we must think about hiring a house for the season, but it is too late for this year.”

  She sank down on a low stool on the hearth, her eyes wide and eager. This was the first indication he had given that he meant to take her with him when he left Blayden. So that he did that, she did not greatly care where they went. He could immure her in the Kentish manor or instal her in shabby-genteel lodgings in the suburbs for all she cared! Almack’s? All the pleasures of the season? Why — yes — for just so long as Marcus was there too.

  He began to detail some of the treats in store, his rather harsh features considerably softened by kindly amusement. The girls listened, Deborah wistfully, Fleur more interested in the speaker than in his tale. Neither of them heard the distant door bell, though Marcus noted it with mild annoyance. Just the one night when he would prefer not to have belated guests. And a queer time of night for anyone to be calling, even if it was the full of the moon.

  Reeves, entering presently, proffered a visiting card on his salver and announced austerely, “The gentleman sent his apologies for calling upon you at such an unseasonable hour, sir, but he has come post from London. He says that his business is most urgent and will brook no delay.”

  Marcus picked up the card. Fleur, watching him, saw his face change. All the kindliness, all the animation that had so softened his expression, were wiped away, and there sat the cool, arrogant stranger of their first meeting. She shrank a little, her own warm happiness dimmed, and wondered who was the visitor who had wrought this disastrous change. But it seemed that he was a friend.

  “Harry Redfern!” exclaimed Marcus. “I’d best see what brings him in such haste. And Reeves — see what refreshment Mrs Bresson can arrange for him. If he has come post he can’t have dined.” And excusing himself to the girls, he went off to greet his guest.

  Fleur’s pretty lips drooped disconsolately. It had been such a wonderful evening — quite the happiest of her short married life — and now it was all spoiled by this intrusive stranger who would probably stay for hours.

  But here she was mistaken. It was not even a quarter of an hour before Marcus was back, bringing with him a pleasant-faced if weary-looking young man whom he introduced as his friend Mr Redfern. “I brought him to you straight,” he explained, in tacit apology for the visitor’s travel-stained condition, “that he may make my excuses. The news he brings is of the gravest. Napoleon has escaped from Elba and landed in France, where, if report speaks truth, he is being welcomed right joyfully. Harry reckons he will be in Paris by now. You will forgive me, my dears, but I must set out at once. This means war again
, and everyone who can help in any way will be needed.” He turned to Fleur. “It grieves me that I must, after all, leave you behind, but I know that you will understand. With good fortune our separation may not be for long. I will send you word as soon as it is possible for you to join me. Meanwhile, if you will see to it that Harry has something to eat, I will go make my own preparations.”

  In numb misery Fleur watched him go. The cup of happiness had been snatched from her lips before she had done more than taste. All her dreams, all their fine plans, must be cast aside because once more the ogre was loose. But why must Marcus go, she thought resentfully. He was not a soldier. He would probably call himself a farmer, since she had learned in recent weeks that he gave a good deal more of his time and his energy to his acres than was usual with the landed gentry. And how could a farmer help the progress of a war?

  It was some small comfort to be called into Marcus’s room, where he had hastily flung a few necessities into a valise, and asked to take charge of such gear as he must leave behind. At least it made her feel that she had some part in his life, albeit a small one.

  His preparations complete, he turned to her at last, where she stood hesitating by the doorway. “We shall be leaving as soon as Harry has eaten,” he said gently. “Be a good child while I am gone. Amuse yourself with the new furnishings and look after Deb for me.” He set his hands on her shoulders, stooped and kissed her lips. A grave, gentle kiss, very different from those that he had bestowed upon her only an hour or two earlier. She knew herself already half forgotten in the urgency of his new preoccupation, and struggled valiantly to hold back the tears that threatened.

  He understood in part. “Don’t come downstairs again,” he said kindly. “I will make your excuses to Harry.”

  She nodded and turned away blindly, fumbling for a handkerchief. When she looked up again he was gone. For the second time in her married life, Mrs Blayden cried herself to sleep.

  Pounding steadily southward, her husband was aware, despite his deep concern with matters of national import, of an odd regret, almost an ache, for the parting with his wife. He had not thought to miss her so. Sometime during the night watches, the exhausted Harry heavily asleep in his corner of the chaise, he found himself recalling an old jingle with which his nurse had been used to admonish him when he had scorned or rejected some offered treat. How did the thing go? Presently it came back to him.

  ‘He who will not when he may,

  When he will, he shall have nay.’

  In the darkness he smiled a little. She was his wife. When the time came to claim her there could be no question of ‘Nay’.

  Chapter Eight

  TEMPESTUOUS spring gave way to sober summer. In the isolation of Blayden it was difficult to keep in touch with what was happening in the wider world, but occasional rumours reached the ears of two anxious girls, even in their quiet backwater. The neighbourhood was in a ferment of activity. Several youngsters who had frequently bemoaned the fate that had caused them to be born just too late to have a crack at Boney hurried off to enlist. The price of horses and fodder began to mount. The more sober citizens busied themselves in seeing that the warning beacons, neglected in recent months, were put in readiness once more.

  Finding that only the more alarming rumours survived long enough to reach them, Fleur formed the habit of riding over to High Barrows almost daily. Grandpapa had the London Gazette sent to him regularly, so one could be sure of reliable news only four or five days old. He also had unofficial sources of information through the channels of commerce, though these were not entirely to be trusted. Grandpapa, unfortunately, was in his blackest mood. He denounced the incompetence that had permitted Bonaparte to escape with a fury that empurpled his face and knotted its muscles into an awesome mask. The shuffling efforts of the French royalists and the king’s final flight to Ghent provoked another outburst. The good humour that had radiated from him on his grand-daughter’s wedding day might never have existed. So savage was his temper that his entire household seemed to exist on tiptoe, creeping about with bated breath and giving each other warning of his approach with small significant jerks of the head so that fellow sufferers might take action to avoid the oncoming fury. And even this did not always save them, since he was just as likely to erupt into wrath at finding some hapless wretch absent from his allotted place of duty.

  But the worst explosion of all was caused by his grand-daughter. He had seemed calmer that morning, so that she was quite unprepared for the scene that followed. Apparently busy with his accounts, he allowed her to read the latest reports without interruption. A cautious comment on the interesting potentialities of Captain Whinyates’s rockets as an artillery unit was received with nothing more alarming than a sour grunt. But as she rose to go he swung round on his chair and jerked out sharply, “Married in February, wasn’t you? And no expense spared. A pretty penny that cost me, first and last. Well — now it’s May. What about it, my girl? Are you in the family way or are you not?” He eyed her slight body with a fulminating glare that clearly indicated his expectation of disappointment, and swept on bitterly, “And if you’re not, what does that idle, expensive young whipper-snapper mean by jauntering off to London? I’ve paid down my blunt like an honest man and I’ll not have him shabbing off till I see you in a promising way to giving me something for my money.”

  Perhaps it was the suddenness of the attack; perhaps it was the freedom of speech that she had enjoyed since her marriage. For the first time in her life Fleur was not petrified by one of Grandpapa’s rage — and she was quite as angry as he was.

  “In that case you should have had your stipulations written into the marriage contract before you signed me away,” she flashed back at him. “No. I am not in the family way. Nor like to be, since my husband puts his duty to his country before the breeding of heirs just to satisfy your vanity.” And then, with a pride that certainly smacked of insolence, “Did you really believe that your gold could chain him to my side when honour demanded that he go?”

  They were brave words, loyal words, but they were disastrous. No one had dared to cross his will for years, and that now it should be the mongrel French brat that he had taken in, he persuaded himself, out of charity, seemed to him the ultimate insult. It was several minutes before he could master himself sufficiently to speak, and when he did his speech was heavy and slow, lacking its old brisk resonance.

  “Fine words, aren’t they, missy? ‘Duty’ and ‘honour’ and ‘love of country’. It hasn’t taken the gentry long to teach you their glib parrot phrases. Sound better than what it says in the Bible about honouring your parents — and your grandparents, that have taken you in and fed you and clothed you for nigh on fifteen years. Well — you’ll find out soon enough that fine words butter no parsnips; and fine lords are just as fond of gold as honest merchants — only they don’t like working for it. Take yourself off. And don’t put yourself about to come back until you’ve given me the great-grandchild I’m waiting for. From today my doors are closed to you.”

  Fleur stared at him in mingled shock and penitence. There was a pathetic dignity about him at that moment that made her deeply ashamed of her outburst. Had she not been miserable and anxious herself, she thought, she would never have spoken so. But he had said unforgivable things, too. Besides, she knew from past experience that while he was in this mood, apology would be useless.

  “As you wish, sir,” she said formally, curtsied, and left him.

  Once or twice before he had uttered preposterous threats during his fits of rage. When the fit had passed — it might be a day or so, or even as long as a week — the threats were forgotten. He never mentioned them again and, of course, he never apologised. But this was the first time that she had been the direct cause of his anger. She thought she had best give him a day or two to cool down and then try to discover how the land lay. But before she could put this plan into action, one of the grooms from High Barrows brought her a letter. It was not, as she had first surmised
, from her grandfather, but from Mr Willets, his man of business. And before she had time to break the seal the bearer gave her a very good notion of its contents by tugging at his forelock and mumbling, “Please, miss — ma’am, I should say — will you show me where I’m to put the horses?” and glancing up in bewilderment she saw that a regular cavalcade was coming up the avenue.

  Her beloved Chérie had been stabled at Blayden ever since her marriage, but here were all the other horses that she had ever ridden, even the old grey pony, her very first mount, long since outgrown.

  “Master said to tell you they wasn’t going to be a charge on him no more,” muttered the groom shamefacedly, softening the message as much as he dared, for Mr Pennington had given it in considerably more picturesque detail. “The saddles and such are all in the wagon with the rest of your things that he told Maria to pack up. They’ve fallen a bit behind.”

  She showed him where the horses could be turned loose in the home paddock for the present, and then dismissed him to the kitchen quarters to refresh himself, managing to speak quietly and pleasantly and even to summon a smile as she thanked him. There was room and to spare in the Blayden stables, though extra hands would be needed. That was a business that she would tackle later. First she must find some private place where she could read the lawyer’s letter undisturbed.