by Valerie King
“What on earth, may I ask, would have led you to believe anything so heartless of me? And just why do you think I agreed to court you in the first place?”
“You made the conditions of our betrothal so difficult, I had always presumed that you wished to punish me.”
“Of course I desired to do so. You had all but given me the cut direct. But, Madeline, I now realize that I have been in love with you since last winter. Do you not see as much? Could you not fathom in all the times I kissed you just how passionately I felt about you?”
At that, she appeared dumbstruck, her mouth slightly agape, her eyes wide with shock. “Y-you love me?” she asked.
He turned away from her. He was deeply hurt. He moved to the round table at the end of the sofa and picked up Lady Cottingford’s invitation. He returned to stand before her and extended the first sheet of paper to her. “I had meant to come to Fairlight today to give you this. I have had it for a sennight now. I had thought that everything was all but settled between us on Saturday, and I had wanted you to know the truth.”
He watched her take the invitation and scan the contents quickly. “But this is an invitation for my father and me to attend Lady Cottingford’s harvest ball. I do not understand. How did you get it?”
He snorted. “Oh, my dear. Are you so insular? How can you be?” He threw up his hands and returned to his chair. He felt resigned in a manner that drove every loving sentiment he felt for her straight out of his heart. “As it happens, Lady Cottingford is a most excellent friend of mine. I was used to attend all her soirees, fetes, and balls in London. This past spring, I made her a promise that since I was taking up residence in Chilchester Valley I would attend her harvest ball, having had to refuse the two years prior. When I gave you the task of procuring an invitation yourself, I took the liberty of securing one for you and your father.”
“You have been invited to her ball three times?” she asked, ignoring the latter portion of his explanation. He nodded.
“Good God.”
“Just so.” He removed his snuffbox from the pocket of his coat and took a pinch. She sat staring at the invitation as though it were a sparrow that would suddenly fly away should she move even the smallest muscle.
“And you have an invitation for yourself?”
“For myself and Lord Anthony, of course.”
“Then you do not need my help in society.”
“In Chilchester, your recent efforts have been very helpful. I suppose once it was known that Lady Cottingford received me, the rest would have followed.”
“But you must have visited her at Ovinghurst Hall on occasion, surely.”
He nodded.
“Why have I not heard even the smallest bit of gossip to that effect?”
“I cannot say. Perhaps her servants are more loyal to their mistress than others in the valley. Of course, I did ask her to remain discreet, since I wished to be accepted in Chilchester on my own merits.”
By now her complexion was rather white. “I should be going,” she said, rising to her feet, the invitation falling to the floor without her awareness.
“Yes, I suppose you should.”
She moved slowly, as one in a dream, toward the table upon which sat her bonnet. “You may call upon me if you like.”
“I shan’t do so,” he stated, snatching up the invitation and following in her wake.
She picked up her bonnet and turned to look at him, a deep frown on her brow. “But why? I thought you loved me.”
“After today, I have every confidence those ill-placed sentiments will dissipate soon enough. You have many fine qualities, Madeline, but your belief in your superiority because of your birth will always be a wedge between us, and that I could never tolerate. I wish you well, but please understand that I have no intention of continuing this misbegotten courtship.” He extended the invitation to her.
She took it in hand, though rather blindly. She said nothing more, but in a dazed manner settled her bonnet over her curls and tied the pretty yellow ribbons beneath her left ear.
“Come, I shall see you to your carriage.”
~ ~ ~
A half hour later, Madeline arrived home feeling as though she had been struck down by a mail coach. Her heart was a stone in her chest that seemed to grow heavier by the minute. Sir Roger loved her. He loved her, but he hoped never to see her again. Sir Roger was on an intimate footing with one of London’s leading hostesses, the august Viscountess Cottingford. Sir Roger had been in love with her since she first met him in February.
Entering the house, she heard a woman’s lilting laughter in the drawing room. She had guests and must strive to put a smile to her lips. How stiff her features felt as she gave herself a shake and forced her lips to curve up, to expose her teeth, to evince some measure of contentment she did not in the least feel.
She strolled into the drawing room, hoping she appeared reasonably content, and was surprised to find seated beside her father on the sofa a woman she did not in the least recognize. Her father was on his feet instantly, his expression glowing. “There you are my dear,” he said. “I have someone I wish you to meet.”
When Madeline moved forward, her father took up her arm and gave it a squeeze. He said, “Madame Charbonneau, may I present my eldest daughter, Madeline Piper.”
The Frenchwoman. Of course, the Frenchwoman from Elsbourne. But what was she doing here? How did her father know her? By habit of long training, Madeline offered her best bow.
The lady inclined her head. “How do you do, Miss Piper?” Though her words were spoken in perfect English, they were laced with a beautiful accent. “You look like your father when he was young.”
“You knew him then?” she asked.
“Mais, oui. We have been amis for a very long time. How long has it been, Horace?”
Madeline could not believe the woman had addressed him by his Christian name. She turned to look at her father and saw his face so softened by affection, by love, that she gasped.
Her father moved forward and took up his seat once more beside the woman, this time taking her hand gently in his and lifting her fingers to his lips. “Thirty years now.”
Thirty years. Then he must have known her before he knew her mother, or at least during the same time. Thirty years would have placed her here in England just before the advent of the French Revolution. She was a refugee, then, having escaped imprisonment and likely death.
“We are to be wed, my dear,” her father said, disrupting her calculations.
“Who is to be wed?” she asked like the simpleton she felt she was in this moment.
Her father frowned, but spoke firmly. “Madame Charbonneau and I are to be wed in a month’s time, once the banns have been posted properly.”
Madeline glanced from one to the other several times. It was too much. First her conversation with Sir Roger, and now this. What would her mother say to such dreadful doings? She weaved on her feet and then felt nothing at all.
~ ~ ~
When she awoke, she was in her bedchamber, with Prudence stroking her hand lightly, Charity pressing a cool damp cloth to her head, and Hope holding a vinaigrette beneath her nose. “What happened?” she asked.
Hope, ever buoyant, said, “You swooned. We had just come in from the garden to bring Madame Charbonneau a bouquet of roses for her to take back to Elsbourne, and the next thing you are crumpled in a heap right in the center of the room. I do not believe you have fainted in your entire existence.”
Madeline tried to sit up, but her head ached, so she lay back down. “No, I have not. Never, in fact.”
“Hope, that will do,” her father’s voice boomed from the doorway. “Feeling better, Maddy?”
“Yes, thank you, though my head aches fiercely.”
“I am not surprised. You did not look well when you entered the drawing room.”
“I was not, Papa. I was, in truth, greatly overset.”
He nodded, moving forward. He then bid his younger daught
ers to allow him a moment’s private speech with Madeline. The girls wished her to get better soon, then filed out of the bedchamber.
“I do not trust them,” he whispered, closing the door. A series of muffled groans were heard from without, giving firm evidence of his suspicions.
Madeline smiled, if faintly, as he drew near.
She looked into his face and wondered if he was indeed real, for nothing of the past two hours could possibly have happened. She had never before swooned in her life. Had Sir Roger actually told her he loved her? And who was this Frenchwoman her father had announced he was wedding in a month’s time?
“I can see by your expression,” he said, gently dabbing the cool linen over her forehead, “that you are still in shock. I did try to warn you, however, if you may recall.”
“In the coach, on the way to Lady Hambledon’s fete?” She asked.
He nodded.
“You were serious, then?”
Again, he nodded.
“Oh, Papa I laughed so. I do hope you will forgive me, but I had thought—I was convinced—you were joking me.”
“I know. At the time it was most lowering, but I believe I had hoped you had overcome some of your mother’s prejudices.”
“My prejudices,” she murmured.
“As you will one day, I am certain. Only I do hope you do not mean to swoon every time you are in Eugenia’s company.”
“I shan’t,” she murmured. “It was just such a shock after having—” She could not complete her thought
“What, my child?” he queried gently. “Did you have a row with Sir Roger?”
“Worse than that. There will be no betrothal now.”
“I see. You must have offended him very badly.”
“I did, but not as you might think. I am always guarded in my speech, but he saw my belief in the superiority of the English in my face, the set of my shoulders, I daresay even in my smile.”
“Yes, I have seen it there as well.”
“You have?” she asked, astonished. “But, Papa, do you not hold any such belief, even in part.”
He shook his head very slowly. “No. Never. Even though it was a favorite subject of my mother’s and yours.”
She held his gaze and understanding dawned quite suddenly. “You have been in love with Madame Charbonneau for a very long time, have you not?”
“Ages,” he replied simply.
“Thirty years?”
“And a little more. I had meant to wed her, but it was forbidden by both my parents on pain of disinheritance. I had no cause to disbelieve either my mother or father, and perhaps I should have been stronger, but I chose my birthright, and Mama chose a bride for me.”
A cold, hollow feeling stole into Madeline’s heart. She tried to picture her father as a young man, perhaps violently in love, and faced with the severe aspect of losing Fairlight and a considerable fortune. She could understand his choice quite easily. He would not have had a feather to fly with otherwise, yet how he must have been tormented. “You never stopped loving Madame Charbonneau?”
“Never. She in turn married as well, but has been a widow for nearly twenty years. Is it wrong of me to confess as much to you, my dear? I know you loved your mother very much. I only hope that you will forgive me and take what lessons you can from my life and from the extraordinary opportunity before you.”
“What would that be?”
He chuckled. “Why, to break with tradition and end these horrible prejudices forever.”
He quit her bedside soon after, and Madeline was left to ponder all that had transpired on the beautiful August morning.
After an hour of difficult ruminations in which her headache remained steady and determined, she finally rose from her bed. She thought a walk might be of some benefit and began ambling in the direction of the nearby village of Stanham and to the church. There was a vault on the property which had belonged to the Piper family for three hundred years. She entered the sacred, cool stone crypt and sat on the bench at the far end. She had come, it would seem, to say good-bye to a beloved parent and to the strictures which had kept her imprisoned for the past decade of her life.
She wept for some time, for the loss of her mother, for her disrupted childhood, for so many teachings over so many generations that had kept her father from wedding the woman he loved, and finally for the truth that she might have lost Sir Roger’s love forever. As the afternoon waned, she began to dwell most particularly on this last point, Sir Roger’s love.
He had said he loved her, that he believed he loved her from the moment he found her at Pelworthy, that their shared kiss beneath the oak had only confirmed what had been in his heart from the beginning. She let herself dwell upon that moment, of being kissed so wondrously, so passionately. She recalled that she had felt so dizzy she had been unable to feel her feet, that she had felt transported into the heavens. But was this love, these passionate, transient feelings?
It came to her that such manifestations were just that, a surface glimpse of deeper waters, of love unrecognized, unseen, even unfelt until now, when she allowed herself to truly feel.
Yes, her soul cried loudly within the sacred tomb, she loved him. She loved a Scotsman. She believed she always would.
The tears came quickly now, seeping from her eyes in a long stream of painful regret. She had been so proud earlier when she had suggested to Sir Roger that he might court her if he wished to do so. How she shuddered at the memory of it. How much she had meant to say by the way she addressed him that he was unworthy of her but she would consider his suit, among others.
He had been so right. She had thought herself superior. She lifted her gaze and wiped her eyes, staring at the brass plate upon which was engraved her mother’s beloved name. And marry an Englishman, Madeline. Only an Englishman will do, could ever do for a Piper.
How wrong she was, Madeline thought. How very wrong, indeed, for only a Scotsman, in all his passionate strength, would do for her.
She rose to her feet and shed her prejudices in that moment as though she had dropped a heavy, cumbersome cape from her shoulders. She left the strictures of a dozen generations behind her as she walked slowly from the crypt, still wiping her eyes, yet feeling more at peace than she had in a very long time.
Only one difficulty plagued her now: how to prove herself worthy, if that was even possible, of Sir Roger’s love.
***
Chapter Thirteen
That same day, Madeline’s first thought was that she must speak with Sir Roger, but she doubted very much that he would be receptive to her sudden change of heart, at least not so readily. For that reason, she spent the remainder of the day and evening cloaked in her own thoughts and often separated from her family so she might more perfectly comprehend all that had happened, both in the miraculous nature of her having tumbled in love at last, but, not less importantly, the complete revision of her scruples on the subjects of birth and breeding.
By the following morning, she felt ready to address Sir Roger, yet still she delayed. She sensed that his heart was not to be won overnight and certainly not by a hasty enumeration of her prior unfortunate beliefs or her present, more gracious new ones. So it was that she resisted putting quill to paper and begging his forgiveness and instead agreed to go to Chilchester with her sisters and father to enjoy a nuncheon at The Bear and to do a little shopping.
After a fine meal had been consumed and all the packages stowed safely in the family coach, Madeline was about to follow her sisters within when three gentlemen on horseback suddenly pulled up before her and dismounted.
“Mr. Calvert. Mr. Rockingham,” she said offering a polite bow. “And Captain Bladen. You are looking well.” A bruise, accentuated by the white of his shirt point, was still quite visible on his jawline.
The gentlemen gathered round the family and exchanged civilities for several minutes until Harris requested that the gentlemen have a private word with her.
Her father nodded his acquiescence. �
�But only a minute, mind. We’ve kept the horses standing long enough.”
“Aye, Papa. I won’t be but a moment.”
Mr. Calvert spoke first. “We are all concerned for you, Miss Piper, and trust that all is well.”
“Very much so, thank you.”
“But are you certain?” Harris asked intently, his dark brown eyes flashing.
Madeline frowned. “To what do you refer?” she asked.
“To Lady Hambledon’s fete, of course. It escaped none of our notice that Sir Roger led you into the woods.”
“Only to an oak tree,” she answered, trying not to smile at the memory of that wondrous kiss. She felt a blush steal up her cheeks, and in order to keep from succumbing to a sudden embarrassment, she bit the inside of her lip.
“He overset you,” Captain Bladen said. “I can see it in your countenance even now, the cur.”
“It is no such—” Her gaze became fixed some fifty yards past the gentlemen. Just approaching the door to The Bear Inn was the man himself. Her heart became trapped in her throat, and she could hardly breathe. What an exquisite sight he was dressed in a finely tailored coat of Russian flame, buff breeches, and glossy top boots. She felt an odd wish that she might merely look at him forever.
“You need not demur,” Mr. Calvert said quietly.
“Demur?” she queried, her gaze flitting to him, but for only a moment. She did not know to what he was referring. Her gaze sought out Sir Roger again. She smiled when he caught sight of her, but he merely nodded coldly and went inside. Her thoughts were instantly overcome by sadness.
Harris’s hand reached for his imaginary sword hilt again. “He should pay for this. He must pay.”
“Just as you said earlier,” Captain Bladen said, addressing Mr. Calvert. “We should put a fire under Mathieson. Would you not agree, Miss Piper?’
“Agree to what?” she asked, having heard only one word in two.
“A fire under Sir Roger.”
Madeline blinked several times. “Yes,” she murmured absently She should build a fire under Sir Roger, only how? How to help him see that she was changed, that she loved him and that he could love her again, if only he would deign to speak with her? Yet how to gain that audience with him?