The Marriage Mart

by Teresa DesJardien

  ***

  She glided into the room, her eyes already adjusted to the darkness so that she bypassed the furnishings without difficulty. He stretched out his hands, and she slid hers into his as he came away from the open doors. They stood, their hands joined between them, their eyes picking out the occasional luminescence of skin and eye the moon-glow afforded them.

  “I thought perhaps you had left,” she said, her voice low and quiet, but never scolding.

  “I am about to.”

  “It has been a long evening. I think perhaps it was a mistake to make this party the night before the wedding.” He heard the note of weariness in her voice.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “But you will be a beautiful, glowing bride come the morn, I know it.”

  “They say all brides are beautiful, but I think not I,” she sighed. The darkness allowed her to be bold, letting her speak her thoughts aloud. Or perhaps it was more than just the darkness. For John had become her dearest friend, a truth brought home by the very warmth that had come back into her limbs the moment he had called her name and beckoned her into the circle of his presence. The party had been chilling and nearly unendurable, when it should have been all gaiety and merriment. And yet it had taken only these precious, stolen moments alone with him to prove they indeed shared a sincere connection.

  “Mary, if you have never been told it, I tell you now: when all the ‘pretties’ have faded into frumpish old women, your face will still be graced by handsome lines and flattering color. Your fine bones ought be more apparent in later life.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, clasping his hands even more tightly, for she knew he spoke only what was his truth. Tears came to her eyes, but they were not entirely unhappy tears.

  “And now I have made you cry,” he sighed, his hand coming away from hers to reach up and place a finger along the glistening trail that spilled over the lashes of one eye. With a kind of groan, he then pulled her gently into his arms, holding her to his chest and rocking slightly from side to side, as one might with a child. “Your dream, at last it is yours. Bretwyn is a very lucky man.”

  “And soon you are to be lucky as well. Have you offered for Miss Yardley yet?” Ah, the dark was a boon, that she might ask such a question, more than half-hidden from his clear eyes.

  “I have not, nor shall I. She is a dear child, but nothing more to me. No, I’ll not be walking the matrimonial path, not anytime soon.”

  “Oh, John, I am so sorry--”

  “Do not be. I am only glad to know it is not to be, even though it was what I thought I wanted.” He spoke to the top of her head, not letting her go, for they did not need to see one another’s faces to communicate, not tonight.

  He held her for a very long time, as realizations struck her as though they were blows.This was the last moment for such closeness. After tomorrow they could never again have the right to be so free with one another. He would have to watch his tongue such as he had never done with her before. He could never hold her with such unmeasured physical closeness. She would never again feel the warmth of his breath as it skittered across her neck or ear, never find herself in so close and silent an embrace that she could feel and hear his heartbeat as though it were her own.

  ***

  John did not know how closely Mary’s thoughts echoed his own. Even as he held her, he was losing her. It was terrible enough to think of her in another’s arms, but--most frightening and overwhelming of all--he doubted he would ever again hold a woman who meant so much to him that the ache in his soul far outstretched the aching of his body for her. A physical passion was there, oh yes, but it was a kind of quiet peeping he heard beneath the roar of the anguish and longing for her, her essence, her deepest being. The admiration for her filled his brain, so that he began to wonder if he could ever be strong enough to open his arms and let her walk out of them.

  A voice was heard, calling from down the hall, first his name and then hers.

  “Hortense,” John identified the voice with some astonishment, like a man waking from a dream.

  Mary turned up her face in the darkness, her arms staying as they were, not moving to disentangle themselves from him. It was only the sound of the searcher coming nearer that served to stir her. “Will you not be the first to kiss the bride?” she asked in the merest whisper.

  He could not resist such an invitation, nor did he try. His mouth came down on hers, and there was only openness and responsiveness, and an eagerness to touch his mouth in return with hers. Her hands went at once to the nape of his neck, as though to hold him there with her forever, as though to say that she, too, could not bear to end what they both knew was in truth a kind of final parting. She pressed into him, allowing him to know even more that the kiss was not given as to a friend, but as to a lover.

  Just as he thought to pull away, to say something, to try to comprehend what was happening, she gave a pain-filled sob and was gone from him, flown from the room before he could even put out a hand to stop her.

  He stood, a trembling coming over him so that his teeth actually chattered. He turned to the open doorway once more, his shaking hands reaching to hold the solid wood, that his strengthless legs might not give out beneath him. He pressed his forehead to the unbending wood, closed his eyes and willed some bit of sanity to return to his fevered brain.

  And then he found himself chortling, a curious sound, a cross between mirthlessness and a fledgling, rising hope--for Mary had betrayed Bretwyn with that kiss. That passion-filled kiss. His Mary, the one whom he had known to be better than all others, had betrayed the man she was to marry.

  Her inconstancy could only make him think of Melinda and Sandra. Only this time, it was he who helped her to the betrayal, and it was Bretwyn who must play the part of cuckold. But the strangest thing of all: he could not mind. The laughter died on his lips in realization; he could not be disappointed by her disloyalty to his friend--for she was nothing at all like the others. Melinda and Sandra had been trying to better their positions in life by what they did, whereas Mary was…Mary was…what? Why were the kisses she gave Bretwyn, as the man had claimed, “chaste and circumspect”, and yet this one she had given him all that could blister a man inside and out with its radiance? Was Mary, then, actually capable of such deceit and cunning that she was making an attempt to persuade him his stand against marriage must not include herself? No, no, a thousand times no, he would swear it. Hadn’t he held the truth in his arms tonight? They had had that moment of such closeness; he would have known had she been lying to him, or pretending. No, that was not the way of his Mary.

  He sighed deeply and shivered in the garden breeze, too overwhelmed to move by the thought that Mary had merely, and simply, wanted his kiss.

  ***

  Mary was discovered by Hortense in a moment’s time. That lady looked at Mary’s flushed face, and inquired, “Are you well, Mary?”

  “Fine. Most fine,” Mary said with eyes that were too bright. “I took some air, and now I am quite well.”

  She let Hortense lead her back to the party. She found herself smiling, laughing at the smallest thing, for she could not keep the near hysteria that filled her lungs from escaping, and better it be done in laughter than in screams. And, too, the rather wild-eyed amusement she showed might account for the flighty, trembling nature of her hands, and the way her whole body shook from time to time.

  Hortense saw the raised color, the overly bright eyes, the giddy attitude, and frowned at it. She looked up then and caught the eye of the companion, Mrs. Pennett. That face was grave, saddened, filled with hurt for her dear charge.

  Suddenly Hortense knew Mary had not been alone in the back room of the house. She knew it for a certainty. Abruptly she left Mary’s side, but the bride-to-be was too far lost to the effort of forced gaiety to notice.

  ***

  “John,” a hushed voice penetrated his frozen solitude, but still he did not move, half hoping she would not know he was there. He was out of luck, though
, for Hortense came into the room. “You’re here?” she asked, but just as soon as she asked, she spotted him, and crossed to his side. “Why, John, you are shaking!” she cried as her hand touched his arm. “Let me close these doors--”

  “No, leave them. It...it is not the breeze which chills me.”

  “What then?” she asked, but John was not fooled into thinking she did not guess.

  “I...it is this marriage. I am not certain Mary should wed Lord Bretwyn. I am not sure they are suited.”

  “Well then, tell me why not.” It wasn’t a question. She tried to pull him toward the inner room, perhaps hoping to have him take a chair, to light a lamp, but he would not part from the shadows to move with her.

  “She…I kissed her, just now--”

  Hortense did not gasp, but she went still.

  “--And it was not the way... It just seems to me a woman ought not to kiss one man the night before she marries another.”

  “Oh, John, when will you ever let us women get down off our pedestals?” she cried in exasperation. “Mary is one of the finest creatures I have ever met. That she kissed you…well, what of it? We women are just as you men--capable of mistakes, and of correcting them, too. She’s excited. She’s overwrought. She’s also imperfect, just like the rest of us.”

  He just shook his head. “You misunderstand me.” It had probably sounded as though he blamed Mary for that kiss--but he didn’t. Not in any manner.

  “John,” Hortense cried, apparently temperance and sympathy at an end. “Why are you letting her marry Bretwyn? You love her, don’t you?”

  Dazzlement and dreams gave way to reality. You love her, don’t you? He put his hands to his face, shuddered, and did not answer.

  “Why don’t you ask her to marry you? I’ll tell you why,” Hortense cried when still he did not answer. “You’ll never take a wife. You’ll never be happy, because you’ll never find the perfect woman.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said gruffly, his hands dropping as he turned to her with a sharp gesture. “I’ve never wanted a perfect woman.”

  She grabbed both his arms, so that his shadowed face was near hers. “The truth now, brother. You want a good woman, and yet one who can enjoy your wicked wit. You want a paragon, but one who accepts you even though you find yourself far from perfect. You’ve found that in Mary. What is truly disturbing you is that it’s Bretwyn who shall have her fine mind, her welcoming arms, and not yourself. You fool! Why can you not just ask her if she’ll have you instead of him?”

  For a moment, he thought he ought, that he could…but reality bit again. His shoulders slumped. “I am not good enough for her. No, Hortense, you know it as well as I. Do not deny it. I’ve bedded dozens of women. I’ve never been faithful to any of them. I was banished from the realm--”

  “But no longer.”

  “--and I’ve played games, always games with her.”

  “On terms she accepted. She’s no fool. Why do you treat her like one?” Hortense cried.

  “It’s too late. She deserves Bretwyn. He’ll bring her stability--”

  “So could you.”

  “Could I? I have no record of such fidelity or refinement,” he said bitterly.

  “Don’t let your past ruin your future. Don’t allow Papa’s ridiculous, stupid, blind indifference to shape your life for one more minute--”

  “Hortense, leave me. Please, as you love me, leave me. I cannot think. I…I need to be alone.”

  She drew back, slowly nodding her head. Yes, let their words penetrate that stubborn brain. Perhaps…maybe…there was a chance he might hear what had been said.

  “I could not love you as I do were you truly wicked or unworthy,” she told him, each word carefully enunciated, but then she left him without another word, although she kissed his cheek before she left.

  In a little while John went out through the double doors into the gardens, closing the doors behind himself with the care and deliberateness of a man too agitated to do anything but what he ought, and made his way blindly to his carriage. His ostler was startled out of a light doze, the horses were quickly rigged to the vehicle, and John was borne quietly away from the party honoring two of the few he had come to admire in this world.

  Chapter 18

  Morning brought with it a ceasing to the shivers that had possessed him in the night, but, too, it brought an unexpected visitor.

  “John!” Hortense had cried stridently, opening the door to his chambers without so much as a knock and despite the frantic efforts of his valet to steer her away.

  “What do you want?” John growled from his bed, the bed wherein he had done very little sleeping as he’d tossed through the night.

  “I let you sleep all night on it, and now I want to talk to you again about this whole marriage business.” She reached for the sleeping jacket his wide-eyed valet was holding at the ready, and tossed it her brother’s way. It landed on his head, spilling down over his face.

  From beneath the material she heard him say, “Go away, you gorgon.”

  “Get up at once, you noddy,” was her immediate response.

  He pulled the robe from his head, sighing, for the past had taught him Hortense would not be dissuaded by so little a thing as someone else’s wishes.

  “Let me dress. You can talk at me in the carriage. In case you’ve forgotten, I must be a best man this morning,” he said hollowly.

  ***

  Across town, Mary looked around the small room wonderingly. It was not that she did not recall how she had come to be at the church, it was rather she could not believe she had been able to do so. She had forced herself to operate on two levels. On the one, she’d gone about the business of getting dressed in a pale blue silk gown, her best, chosen for her bridal day. She’d made sure the flowers and the small bible she’d carry were as they ought to be. She’d seen to all of the tiny details her mother, sister, father, and brother had thought to throw her way. Yet, on the other side of her mind, she was in the middle of a battlefield. That side warned her to flee, to desist, to change her mind, to deny the day, to cease the plans.

  She heard her own internal arguments, and did her best to ignore them.

  It’s time to marry.

  How can I marry him?

  This was exactly what you were expecting! Why hedge now?

  But Charles doesn’t deserve this…doesn’t deserve this lack of affection.

  Don’t be foolish. Affection will grow.

  I’m not whole. He doesn’t deserve half a person.

  And what would make you whole?

  There was only one answer to that, and she dare not even let herself think it.

  Her mother looked over and saw her daughter’s eyes were once again rolling back into her head. “Hartshorn!” she cried.

  Lydia pressed the vial into Mama’s hand, which was waved again under Mary’s nose. Her nose wrinkled, her eyes slid back into place, and she thrust out a hand to push the vile smell away. “I’m well!” she gasped.

  “You are not well,” her mother chided. “That’s the third time you’ve nearly fainted this morning. Are you ill?” She put her mouth near her daughter’s ear and whispered urgently, “You aren’t expecting, are you?”

  “Of course not!” Mary cried, blushing and feeling a little faint again when she did. “I’m just nervous.”

  “Well, I never saw such a case of nerves.”

  The door to the room the women had selected for re-readying the bride opened. Charles stood there, an anxious look on his face. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but at the last minute switched and said instead, “Everyone ready? The music is just about to begin.”

  “Lord Bretwyn! Get out at once!” Lady Edgcombe cried, coming at him while making shooing motions. “You’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding.”

  “It is the wedding,” he said dryly.

  “Go on now.”

  He retreated and the door was pulled closed, but not before Mary had a glimps
e of the best man, John, standing silently a few steps behind Charles. For a moment their eyes met, but then the door was closed between them. She had seen Hortense there, too, at her brother’s side, speaking rapidly near John’s ear.

  “Men!” her mother scolded, coming back to take her daughter’s elbow and help her to her feet.

  Mary tottered for a moment, but the sudden dizziness was fleeting. She tried to give her mother a small smile, but she thought it must be more a grimace.

  Then there was some lovely music, and her mother was led away on the arm of Randolph, and it was her father’s arm to which she now clung. He led her from the little room, and she stood at the back of the church with him. She looked away from where Mrs. Pennett stood in the row behind the family box, a kerchief pressed to her mouth, her fond eyes filled with a regret Mary could not bear to look upon. Hortense was at Mrs. Pennett’s side, frowning. That does not bode well on a wedding day, Mary thought, the observation coming as though from a distance.

  Mary turned her gaze up the aisle, saw Charles and John exchanging low, soft words, and saw Charles scowl more deeply than Hortense.

  Unexpectedly, John turned and strode down the aisle, and Mary felt a new trembling come over her. She closed her eyes, half wishing him gone from the church, that she might not have to look upon him this cheerless day. But she knew by the way Papa came to a halt that John had stopped before them, and she forced her eyes open.

  He had a peculiar look on his face, half anger, half anxiety.

  “We’ve a wedding to hold,” her father said, scowling at the marquess.

  John ignored him. “Do you love Bretwyn?” he demanded of Mary, his blue eyes searching her face.

  She made a small sound, and looked down the aisle to Charles. He began to walk her way--not hurried, nor seemingly particularly agitated by this interruption of the ceremony. She had to admire how poised he appeared. She felt anything but.

  She thought about her future--and Charles’s--yet ,despite all, found her voice. She spoke loud enough for both men to hear the only answer an honest soul could give in a house of God, “No. I don’t love him.”