The Wedding

by Edith Layton

  “You may know about exotic flowers, but we common folk,” she said with mock haughtiness, “are the experts on common beauty. There, look—next to the hedgerows—daisies and violets…and primroses!”

  There was nothing common about the way delight lit up her expressive face, he thought, although he only said, with a grin, “Yes, so it is: Bellis perennis, Viola adorata, and Primula vulgari. You’re right.”

  She laughed as hard as he’d wanted her to, but stopped abruptly when the carriage rolled into the village. Then she became nervous, silent and withdrawn. He missed her joyous mood almost as much as she did.

  She was polite and shy with everyone he introduced her to, but the farmers, merchants, and local folk found her demeanor just right. Not a bit high in the instep, but not pushy either, and just distant enough to be a true lady, they decided. News of her arrival spread quickly, and anyone who was able came down to the tavern to see the new viscountess. Even though they’d all been expecting Lady Charlotte, a famous beauty, to be their lord’s wife, they weren’t disappointed with his bride. Pretty, prettily behaved, and fresh as springtime. No wonder the viscount was so taken with her, they agreed.

  But Dulcie didn’t know how the villagers felt about her, even if Crispin guessed it. He didn’t know whether to be pleased about their reaction or not. They’ll feel bad when she is gone, he thought, watching her smile a shy greeting to two village matrons. But he knew it would be worse if they’d never seen her at all. He decided he wouldn’t say the marriage had been invalid when it was over, after all. Or tell anyone that he’d been divorced when she was gone. He could always say she died, he decided, as another local woman curtsied low to his beautiful new wife.

  After Dulcie was done stammering shy answers to polite questions and turned a flushed and worried face to his, he offered her his arm. “Luncheon?” he asked.

  “Oh. Certainly,” she said, her spirits sinking. They’d only just got to the village. If he was taking her home again so soon it meant she’d embarrassed him as much as she had herself. If that was possible. She’d tried to act like a lady, but had obviously failed. She took a deep breath that sounded dangerously like a sob, and took his arm. So be it. She had tried.

  But instead of walking her to the carriage, he led her up the main street, on toward the green, then past the little cemetery to the very top of the hill, where an ancient church stood tall and rough-shouldered, dominating the scene. Dulcie picked her way across soft early grass pied with little flat daisies to a courtyard overlooking the bright river that rushed past the town.

  “The monks thought like warriors in the early days,” Crispin commented as she gazed around, “and so both castles and monasteries were built on the highest hills. Whether they did it to protect themselves or to be closer to God, only they knew. This used to be a monastery, but there wasn’t much protection for them, after all. Good King Henry decided the monks had to go, and they did. Stones from here were used to build my own home. Only the church remains. There are cellars here with rooms of stone where the monks slept and ate and wrote and prayed. I played there as a boy. We’ll lunch here. I think the monks won’t mind. They enjoyed a good bottle of wine too, you know.”

  She was so bemused she couldn’t speak until she saw Willie and the coachmen spreading a long cloth on the ground. Then she stared at Crispin, and he grinned at her.

  “The ground is warm from the sun, and the cloth is thick. If I give you my hand, do you think you can sit down? Your skirts will give you added protection from the damp, I think,” he said, holding his hand out to her.

  She’d never tried to sit on the ground in one of her grand new gowns, but she’d spent hours on the floor at her father’s feet as a girl. She gave him a bright smile, took his hand, sank to the ground—and bobbed right up again, like a cork on a millpond. Her face flamed for as she had tried to sit, her skirt had begun to tilt, and she’d had a sudden horrified picture of herself with her skirt, hoop, and petticoat up around her ears. She stood up again as fast as she could.

  A quick glimpse of a shapely leg was considered very provocative. Legs were much more erotic than breasts, after all. Breasts were commonly on display—on the half shell, as Dulcie had heard it put—all the time. Fine ladies and fast women knew how to show pretty little glimpses of their legs. But Dulcie was neither, and although she privately thought her legs were fine, she still thought a girl’s underpinnings were her own concern, unless she was looking for trouble. And Dulcie certainly had enough of that already.

  Crispin hid his grin and cocked an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to be seated. It took a while. She held her skirt down, and finally discovered that if she crossed her ankles and balanced weight, she could lower herself like a bell without mishap. She finally managed to sit gracefully, as she thought a lady would, and when she was settled, her narrowed gaze made Willie put his hands in his pockets and whistle and caused the coachmen to turn around and survey the view. Crispin was beside himself with mirth, and only smiled politely so he wouldn’t end up being pushed down the hill. She looked capable of doing it.

  “Ah, we have fowl and ham, bread and cheese, butter and relish and some meat pasties, too. I think we won’t starve,” Crispin said with pleasure as he peeked into the basket the coachman handed him.

  “You men can go off to the tavern; they’ve got a good fresh brew today,” he told the coachmen and Willie. But he saw how Willie was eyeing the basket and said, on the spur of the moment, “No. You, lad, have had too much of that kind of refreshment in your young life, I think. Stay and share luncheon with us, if you please.”

  Dulcie was going to say something about that, but the look on Willie’s young-old face stopped her.

  “You mean it?” Willie asked, his face twisting, as uncertain of kindness as he was of a kick, and trying hard not to show it.

  “Of course,” Crispin said. “I never say a thing I don’t mean.”

  “Lor’!” Willie said, clearly as surprised at that thought as he was at having the lord of the manor ask him to tea.

  “Well, not often,” Crispin added, and Willie laughed, and so, then, did Dulcie. But she too felt as confused as Willie did. Crispin’s asking Willie to dine with them was so odd, endearing, and unexpected that it twisted in her heart and almost hurt.

  Willie hunkered down nearby, as though unwilling to take Crispin too much at his word. That, too, made Dulcie feel both good and bad, but the way Willie fell on the food Crispin offered him soon made her glad that he sat a little way apart from them. That was the way it went during her odd luncheon: she felt both good and bad about all of it.

  She’d been afraid of being alone with Crispin, but what he’d done had won her over faster than the soft, sweet talk she feared he would have tried if they’d been alone. She gazed at him, sitting at his ease, one booted foot drawn up as he ate, and she wished he’d wolf his food down, or smack his lips and disgust her in some way. But even the way he licked his fingers made her stomach warmer than the wine he’d poured for her.

  “You look like a new-blown flower fallen on the grass,” he said, turning to look at her.

  She would have been pleased, if the meaning of “fallen flower” hadn’t worried her.

  “Don’t you think so, Willie?” Crispin asked, puzzled by the play of pleasure, followed by dismay, on her face.

  “Oh, yeah. Look lovely, you do, my lady, and that’s solemn truth. I saw a pincushion once, all satin and lace; it looked like you do now,” Willie said.

  “Yes. Very apt. Soft, yet prickly, just like a pincushion,” Crispin agreed. He ignored the murderous look she shot him. “Well, then, lad,” he said, “now that you’ve done the pretty, let’s get down to business. Anything odd going on that I ought to know about? Oh, you can talk in front of the lady. It’s her concern as well as mine.”

  “Going on?” Willie said thoughtfully. “Aye, well, your youngest dairy maid’s going to be producing like your cows if you don’t get that randy new groom away from her, a
nd soon. She’ll calve by Christmas day, the way she’s going. And your butler here is a sight more friendly than that fellow in London, but that may be because he likes your wine cellar so much. And your housekeeper…”

  “I mean,” Crispin said with admirable steadiness, “about Harry Meech and company. Any new faces or odd business I should know about?”

  “Oh, that. Nah. Nothing yet,” Willie said.

  “Well, let me know if you see anything here or on the estate—anything that is to do with Harry, that is,” Crispin added quickly. “So tell me, do you like it here in the countryside?”

  “No. Sorry, my lord, but I do not. Food’s good, and the company’s better’n I expected, but the quiet’s near killing me. Nothing but wind in the trees and listening to stars fall at night.” His thin body shivered. “No hearing the watch calling the hour, no horses in the streets, no sounds of folks coming and going, having a good time or fighting and screaming and living all around you. How can you sleep?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

  “It’s a trick we learn,” Crispin said and grinned at Dulcie. But she wasn’t smiling, because the quiet of the countryside frightened her a little, too.

  “But I’ll stick it,” Willie said, “long as you need me. The money’s good, and I can use the rest, I guess.”

  “Won’t anybody in London miss you?” Dulcie asked. With all his cleverness, she knew that Willie, seen this close, and this cleaned, was ten years old at most—perhaps only nine. It was hard to say. He was thin and small, his fine-boned face was pinched, and there was a world of wisdom in his watchful eyes.

  “Miss me? Maybe the runners will.” Willie gave a sour laugh. “And Harry might, but nobody else, nah. I got no folks no more. I had some baby brothers and sisters, but they died when they was tykes. I had a big brother, too, but I lost him a few years back.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Dulcie said. “He was ill too?”

  “Yeah. Rope fever,” Willie said, his shrug so slight that only one small shoulder moved. He pulled up some grass as he spoke, his plate of food forgotten. “He was hanged for pinching wipes—stealing handkerchiefs, to you. He was older’n me, but not so fast. See, he was getting bigger, and slowing down. I told him and I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. Truth to tell, he wasn’t that bright, didn’t know the ropes, poor mutt, though he figured he knew better’n me, being older ’n’ all, and taking care of me for so long, or trying to, y’see.” Willie’s voice became softer and his enunciation more careless as he went on, shredding the grass as he spoke. “So they got him for being on the nab, and they hanged him high. At Tyburn Hill, it was. I watched, ’cause it weren’t right to let him go alone. He didn’t see me, actually, ’cause he had a bag over his head. They dropped him, and he kicked a little, and then he was gone. God. It’s queer. Sweating and praying in the morning, talking sixteen to the dozen, scared and shaking—and gone off the face of the world by night, like he’d never been here. He was a good sort, but too slow for the handkerchief game no more, don’t you see?”

  “How old was he?” Crispin asked gently.

  “Old enough to know better, that’s what gets me,” Willie said in a growly voice. “He was ten.”

  “Oh,” said Crispin and Dulcie together, and then looked at each other. That was all they could do, but they found much comfort in each other’s eyes. Boys were hanged if they were villains; that was life. But suddenly they both knew, as they never had before, that life was short and capricious.

  “As to the rest of it, my lord,” Willie said, breaking the silence and bringing Crispin’s thoughts back, “I’ll be staying on here till this affair is all settled. But I been thinking it might be nice to learn a trade while I’m here. I like horses, and never seen none so fine as the ones you got. Think I could help out in the stables and learn a thing or two about driving, maybe?”

  “If my head groom doesn’t mind—and I doubt he does, the way you two seem to get on—I don’t see why I should. Does this mean you’ll be asking for double wages?” Crispin asked.

  “Why, now, I never thought of that!” Willie said, laughing so hugely at the joke that Crispin and Dulcie had to join him, and laughing louder because they were so relieved to be doing it.

  By the time they finished their luncheon and strolled back to the village, the sun was lowering in the sky. They rode home in silence, although the flowers still blew in the light breeze, and more had opened during the warm spring day.

  Evening came lavender and fragrant, but Dulcie felt restless and ill at ease as night drew in. Rain was slashing against the windows by the time they had dinner, and she shivered even though she had changed to a simple wool gown. Crispin noticed and invited her to take some brandy with him after dinner. He led her to a small salon whose outer walls were protected by shrubbery and ivy, and even the chill fingers of the most insinuating drafts couldn’t find their way through the thick draperies he drew over the tall windows. A fire roared in the hearth, and the golden brandy was warm in her throat, but Dulcie still couldn’t fight the chill in her hands and heart. The room was rich and cozy, but it was new to her, and not hers, and suddenly she realized how far from home she was tonight.

  “The day was too fine to last,” Crispin commented as he turned from the windows to see her staring into the fire, “as was your happiness, wasn’t it?”

  “I know that such things as hangings happen,” she said wretchedly, knowing she didn’t have to explain what she was talking about, although they hadn’t spoken of it for hours. “Who doesn’t? In London I saw the crowds going to the hangings every week. And though I never wanted to go with them, I understand many people have a wonderful time there. They sell pasties and lemonade, and broadsheets with the history and last words of the condemned, so everyone in the crowd will know who’s going to be hanged. It doesn’t seem like death that way, does it?”

  “Oh, yes, it does,” Crispin said quietly. “I went to a hanging once upon a time, when I was younger and thought I’d live forever. It didn’t amuse me; it only made me want to get drunk. Maybe that’s why so many people go. Or it might be that people appreciate life more when they see how easily it can be taken. Even the most meager life must seem brighter when the alternative is shown to them. But why do those who have everything enjoy seeing the death of those who have nothing? I don’t know. But there are those who wouldn’t miss the spectacle for the world. Maybe they feel safer, thinking that their rights are being protected. They’re not, though. They could hang half of London—and sometimes I think they are doing precisely that—but it only makes the surviving villains more clever. Look, it’s life. You can’t change it, so try to forget it.”

  “How can I forget?” she said miserably. “I never knew a hanged person before.”

  “You didn’t know Willie’s brother, either,” he said, sitting beside her. He took her hand in his, and was shocked at how icy it was. “You don’t even know what his name was.”

  “But I did know him, in a way. And so did you. He was like Willie, only slower, and sadder, wasn’t he? Oh, dear,” she murmured to herself, shaking her head. “It’s not as if I don’t have enough trouble of my own. Now I must grieve for a boy I never knew.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re so disturbed,” he said thoughtfully, though the chill of the story of the dead boy was still in his heart, too. The pall of the hangman seemed to lie over them both, so Crispin avoided thinking about it by concentrating on how to console her.

  “Dulcie, I know this situation—your being here with me, our being married though we are strangers to each other—isn’t easy for you. I’ll admit that at first I thought this whole thing was your idea. Now I know it was not. Your love for your father got you into this. And his love for you is keeping you here. It doesn’t matter anymore who’s at fault. We’ll just have to make the best of it. Right? “Now,” he said, putting his arm around her, moving nearer to share the warmth of his body and his voice, “what shall we do? I know that the uncertainty of your future bothers
you, as well it might, and probably brought on this blue mood.”

  She allowed him to draw her close, because she was melancholy and needed human company to keep Willie’s cold nameless brother at bay.

  “Well,” he went on, “worry no more. Most of our tasks are already done. I had to introduce you to the people of the town and countryside. All you have to do now is wait it out with me. When we find your father, or when my lawyers find a hole in the fabric of this monstrous lie of a marriage, we’ll both be free. Don’t worry about that, either; I’ll see you’re well provided for. You entered into this pretense for money, and you won’t be penalized for that. I won’t let you go penniless. Be still. It’s what I want to do. All right,” he said, laughing at how stiff she’d grown. He gave her shoulder a gentle shake. “We’ll argue about money later, when the time comes.”

  He read her thoughts in her sigh and in the way the tension left her shoulders. He stared into her worried eyes. “Relax and be comfortable. We don’t have to fight,” he said, bending his head to breathe in the scent of her perfume at her neck. “We can be friends, can’t we?”

  “I suppose,” she said, lowering her gaze to her fingers, which were fidgeting in her lap.

  “Oh, such enthusiasm.” He chuckled, and she could feel his laughter reverberating in his hard chest. “Of course we can be friends.”

  He saw the uncertainty in her whiskey-colored eyes, but he also saw the quickening of her breathing, the way her breast moved. He clasped both of her hands in one warm hand. She heaved a little broken sigh at how that solid clasp comforted her. Then he leaned closer and touched her hair.

  “Oh, Dulcie,” he breathed, hardly knowing what he was saying because of the warmth of her, because of the pleasure of being alive and having a soft, curved body so close to his on such an empty night. “Such a cold night, such a sad old world out there, isn’t it? Why can’t we be friends?”