“That arrived three days ago,” said Charles. “It put Rayne in something of a quandary. His ‘excellent and conscientious young officer’ had just been asked to leave the regiment and had applied to transfer. He was still uncertain what to do when I arrived back in barracks.” He pulled at his mustache in an unconsciously pompous gesture. “It did not take a very great effort to persuade him to tear up your application — at least, for the time being. Redvers plans to return to England two days before the wedding, so there is no chance of your missing it.”
“I am reinstated?” Hugo was bewildered by this sudden reversal.
“You have never officially left. Rayne could not let the honor of General Redvers’ request fall upon some other regiment, could he?”
“And you could not let the dishonor of my forced transfer fall on your family.”
It was said with such bitterness Charles was shaken. Had they traveled so far in anger? He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I also could not let my brother serve in another regiment. There is too much between us for that.”
It was the end of a quarrel more deep-seated and emotionally complex than any difference of opinion they had ever had. It left Charles dismayed at the irrational anger that had flooded him today at the sight of the man he loved as a brother. To Hugo, already fighting emotions he did not wish to associate with Charles, the further obligation put upon him by Charles’s intercession on his behalf with Colonel Rayne left him unwillingly ungracious — truculent, almost.
“I must thank you for your support,” he said tonelessly. “Rayne suggested I should attempt to acquire some of your steadiness of character. He is right. I cannot expect you to protect me from my failings forever.”
“Nonsense,” said Charles with assumed heartiness. “It was hardly my influence that led to the invitation from Redvers to return to Vienna. He must value your opinion highly.” To cover the tension he held up his glass. “I should like some more of that wine. It is of devilish fine quality.”
Hugo eased his taut muscles and walked across with the bottle. “It is an extravagance I cannot easily forego. Should you like me to bring you a case from Vienna?”
Half an hour later, Charles left for his return journey to Brighton. They shook hands and smiled, but the first hair crack had appeared in the solid fortifications of brotherhood they had so eagerly and willingly built around themselves.
“You will have no time for visits now,” said Charles, “but I am confident that a letter to Mama and another to my father will make the situation a lot easier. Heavy emphasis on the state of your health at the time cannot fail to aid their understanding. You will find time to pen them before you leave?”
“Naturally.”
“And one to Victoria? It will make her less unhappy over the affair.”
“Yes,” said Hugo, wondering what he could put in a letter to Victoria, feeling as he did.
“Hugo…one last thing.”
“What is that?”
“Promise that you will see a doctor before your departure.”
“There is no…oh, very well. I owe you that at least.”
Charles clapped him on the shoulder, a casual gesture that had suddenly become theatrical. “Goodbye, old fellow. Steer clear of explosives. When I get married I want you standing there beside me to witness it. Do not fail me, will you?”
Hugo’s quick reassuring smile was fabricated. “I’ll be there, Charles.”
He closed the door and walked back into the shabby parlor where the official envelope lay on the plush tablecloth. Picking it up, he reread the general’s request and the accompanying orders signed by Colonel Rayne. Flinging the documents down again, he sank into a chair with his head in his hands.
“Damn, damn, damn!” he cried in savagely exploding crescendo. “If it had been anyone but Charles!”
Chapter Five
Hugo’s letter caused as much tumult in its recipient as if it had been a declaration of undying love. That he had no talent for words was obvious from the start, but this failing only aroused fierce longing for the man who believed her unaware of the true motive for his leaving Wychbourne. The fumbling misphrased sentences that asked Victoria to forgive his deplorable neglect of her consideration and unselfish efforts to help him through a difficult time only conjured up to the girl a sharp imaginative picture of his desperation as page after page was crumpled by his long fingers in this effort to tell a pack of lies.
The stilted clichés could not have told her more plainly how impossible he found it to write to her. The absence of any real part of himself in the letter brought him startlingly close to her. It made what he did not say stand out with an emphasis it would not have shown in ink on the paper. The lies spilling from his pen showed her the truth in italics.
For several days after his departure from Wychbourne, Victoria had tormented herself with desperate plans. Within eight weeks she was pledged to marry a man who had chosen her from among more noble and wealthy aspirants to his title. Plans for the wedding were made. She had been accepted by his family, given the heirlooms a woman in her position should receive. Charles’s regiment had officially received her into its ranks. The officers had given a dinner in their honor, plus a handsome present, and an archway of swords was to be provided by his fellow officers at the ceremony. Apart from that, notices had been sent to the leading newspapers and journals; presents had been arriving at Wychbourne and Aunt Almeira’s and invitations sent out.
Did she dare tell Charles it had all been a mistake? The thought set her trembling. Charles would look a fool in the eyes of his family, society and the regiment. She would have to give back everything he had proudly given her; the wedding gifts would all have to be returned. She would be in disgrace — the subject of contemptuous gossip — and her uncle, aunt and cousins would be subjects for ridicule and pity. They would never forgive her. Most of all, her cousins would suffer from her own selfish behavior when the scandal broke.
For a short while she allowed herself to suppose she were strong enough to give Charles back the enormous sapphire. The marriage would not take place and she would be free, but to what avail? Hugo had known there was no answer and, by his going, had told her he could not complete the scandal. The family who had brought him up would cast him off as disloyal and dishonorable; he could not remain in the regiment; he would be shunned by his friends. Most of all, he would lose his self-respect, for the only way they could be together was as social outcasts. Too many other people for whom they had affection would be hurt by such drastic steps.
Robbed of the hope of seeing him shortly and unable to comfort herself by assuring him he was forgiven for leaving without a word, she had only his letter as consolation. Times without number she took it from her small shell-covered box to feel the paper he had held, trace the outline of the words with her finger as if the action put her hand into his as he wrote them and to read the text aloud as he must have done before sealing it.
As week succeeded week she grew quieter and more withdrawn, seeing her wedding day only as the moment when they would come face to face again after their enigmatic parting. There was enough to fill her days, but at night, when she lay in bed with Glencoe at her feet, she asked the Lord in her prayers why he had sent Hugo to Vienna at the beginning of last summer. If he had only been with the garrison during those carefree months, Charles would soon be her brother, not her husband. By the time the wedding was a mere three days away, the Lord still had not given her an answer.
Hugo did not arrive when expected on the day before the marriage. Victoria had spent it in an ache of longing for him to appear. His failure to do so did not bring censure from her, as it did from the others. Her one dread was that he had met with another accident.
It was only when the ladies of the party were preparing to retire for an early night that Charles came hurrying from the dining room, where the gentlemen were taking part, and took Victoria by the arm.
“All is well, dearest. Hugo has this minu
te made his appearance.”
Relief filled her. “I am glad. What was the cause of his delay?”
He tightened his lips. “Difficulties in crossing the Channel, he says. Nobody but Hugo ever has so many disasters befall him to spoil the plans other people have made…but that need not concern you. He sends his apologies — something he seems always to be doing of late,” he added dryly. “Unfortunately, he cannot call on you tonight. He is under an obligation to make his peace with Mama and my father. He has not seen them since that affair at Christmas, you know.”
“Poor Hugo,” she said softly. “Storms in the Channel have hardly improved his case.” Her hand went on his arm. “You will stand by him with your parents?”
“When have I not done so?” he asked with a sigh, tucking her hand through his arm. “I will see you to your room, my love, then I must hasten away for the last time. After today we shall have a whole month — no claim of duty or propriety can pull us apart then.”
She made no reply. His remark spread a cloud over the joy of knowing Hugo was again under this roof with her. They bade the guests good night and set off along the corridors already lined with potted ferns and green plants as a background to the masses of fresh flowers due on the morrow.
“I wish Hugo would think seriously about marriage,” mused Charles as they walked arm in arm. “It would do much to settle his restlessness. Devotion to wife and family would soon banish his obsession to reform something that cannot be bettered.”
“Why, Charles,” she said swiftly, “if every forward-thinking man did that we should not now have railways, steamships, gas lighting or chloroform. Instead, we should have an island overrun with children.”
His astonishment was so great it made him stop in midpace. “My dear Victoria, from whom have you heard such ideas?”
She swung around to face him. “Unfortunately, I have heard them from no one. It is merely a matter of common sense. I have thought about Hugo’s ideas extensively.”
“Then I strongly advise you to cease. Subjects of that nature are not suitable for gentle minds, and society will not expect to hear them voiced by my wife. It is well known in the regiment that I do not support these equestrian reforms. They are unsuited to British cavalry because they stem from the Continent. It really will not do to have you suggesting you do not respect my views.”
“I have only tried to illustrate that it might not be for the greatest good if a gentleman were to lose his beliefs beneath the duties of husband and father,” she said with unusual persistence. “It is certainly not my intention to discuss such things with society, for the vast majority would not understand me if I did. They are, most of them, complete knob-heads.”
For several seconds Charles studied her flushed face, then began to laugh with soft sensuality. “By heavens, you drive a man to the limits of his control, Victoria. Such a provocative statement deserves to be met with more than a mere salute on the lips, but tomorrow, my dearest, I shall show you the full measure of ecstasy. You will not care for steamships or gas lighting then, I promise you.”
Struggling free from his tight embrace, she reminded him that he had other duties that demanded his attention, and they continued to her room.
Once inside, she did not immediately allow Rosie to undress her. Instead, she sat dreamily before the fire while Glencoe had a blissful hour on her mistress’s lap, enjoying the soft rubbing of fingers on her fat furry stomach. The young maid indulged romantic fancies of the bride contemplating the delights of her wedding night. Victoria, however, was dreaming of Hugo, not her bridegroom.
*
It was the kind of glorious daffodil-and-dewdrop March day with which England woos her countrymen from their winter heavyheartedness. The horses in the paddock threw up their hind legs and whinnied their pleasure; the dappled deer trod delicately into patches of sunshine by the lake; and ducks upon the surface flirted with their reflections in a way that would make any exiled heart fly immediately to England’s green land and sparkling waterways.
On that morning, Victoria stood on the threshold of perception. Rosie slipped the skirt of the ivory wedding gown over the hooped petticoats, then assisted the bride into the pointed bodice that covered her throat and clothed her arms with bell-shaped sleeves over lace undersleeves. Very carefully the maid pinned on the great sapphire brooch that was Charles’s wedding gift. It was more a donation to the family than a gift of love, but it had been made to match the engagement ring and represented an investment of Stanford money. There was another present awaiting her at the honeymoon lodge, he had told her. Something more personal.
On went the wreath of flowers and the exquisite family veil that turned a beautiful girl into a high-born lady of quality, remote and untouchable. With the donning of that veil Charles has gained his first faint hold on my life, she thought. By the end of the ceremony it will be his entirely.
Dr. Castledon arrived to lead his niece down to her bridegroom. The elderly man was too overcome to speak, so Victoria was left in silence to cover the thick carpet in her bridal slippers, knowing each step was taking her further on a road her heart cried out for her not to take.
Rounding a bend in the first staircase, she had her first sight of the waiting guests. In her absence that morning the Great Hall had been smothered in pink and white carnations, roses and gardenias, cyclamen and great creamy lilies whose scent wafted upward with the heady damp perfume of hothouse plants. Within their encompassing beauty crowded the strangers and friends who had come to see a society wedding. The ladies’ dresses were lavish and adorned with an impressive array of diamonds. The gentlemen were dignified in morning suits or dashing in the uniform of Charles’s regiment.
She had reached the lower part of the second staircase and the chapel was in view, lit by candles and the sun through stained glass. Her throat tightened. Two men stood side by side with their backs to her, dressed in the impressive uniform of the Hussars — one tall, elegant and golden-haired, the other broader and more muscular, with rich brown hair glowing beneath the dust-flecked rays that struck diagonally through the window. The sunshine caught the gold-fringed epaulettes and elaborate lacing on the blue fur-trimmed pelisses slung over their shoulders; it picked out the twists of gold that denoted rank on their cuffs and the heavy crusting around the high collars; it flashed on sword scabbards that hung with the elaborate sabertaches from wide gold sashes and twinkled fitfully upon the spurs fixed to polished riding boots. They looked proud and impressive, the embodiment of England’s aristocratic cavalry officers, but Victoria had never seen Hugo in uniform. It might have been a stranger standing there.
For a moment the flowers, the colorful mosaic of people, the enormous crystal chandelier, the rector in his white surplice and the two blue-uniformed men spun around in a blur of trembling rainbows, but her feet still went on, one before the other, sweeping her inexorably forward. Faces turned as she walked between the ranks. Someone cleared his throat very noisily. A susceptible female sniffed into a handkerchief. Feet shuffled. The rector’s over starched surplice crackled as he assumed a more ecclesiastical stance. The two brothers remained stiffly at attention, staring at the tiny altar.
Foot by foot Victoria approached until she stood beside Charles and the music died away. Everyone in the Great Hall seemed to be holding his breath as silence replaced the boom of the organ. It was nothing compared with the suspension of life Victoria felt as she glanced up through the barrier of lace and met Hugo’s eyes.
*
Hugo felt the world tilt as their glances locked. The message was clear and distressing. Victoria was captive in the same prison; he had run from Wychbourne too late! The blow brought a return of the physical sickness he had suffered on the packet boat from France, and for several appalling minutes he dreaded that he might have to retire and suspend the ceremony.
The exchange of words followed their hallowed pattern while he fought the need to shout Stop! and drag her away from this sacrificial altar. His lips remaine
d frozen together while the high collar dug into his throat to choke him, and sweat trickled down his temples and gathered in his armpits.
…forsaking all other… Dear God, the words mocked him. He was breaking one of the commandments and every principle of honor and loyalty as he stood there in the holy chapel. Where was his strength? Had he thrown integrity from the window? Victoria was saying her responses in a faint but steady voice that shamed him. He must not only match her courage; he must crown it.
By the end of the service he was as steady as a rock. When he stood for long minutes with a metal stand supporting his bent arm holding the fur busby, the photographer saw him as a proud and self-assured young man; when he gave Victoria the obligatory kiss on the cheek he was able to say in a confident voice, “Charles is a lucky man…and so am I, to have gained such a delightful sister.”
“Thank you.” It had been easy to leave it at that, for a bride is allowed little time for conversation, but their glances had hesitantly traveled in converging directions on too many occasions during the lavish wedding breakfast, when his should have been on the six attendants and hers on her husband.
The young bridesmaids gave him a genuine excuse to neglect further contact with the bride, the Castledon sisters being extremely coy and flirtatious — a fact that would have amused him at any other time — and he devoted himself to their wishes and entertainment. However, the minute he was left alone while they were presented to Colonel Rayne, Victoria appeared from the throng and stood before him. He loved her all the more for the courage he did not possess.
“You are so popular today,” she began breathlessly. “I feared I would never have the opportunity to thank you for your letter. I valued it.”
“I regret I had the occasion to send one.” It sounded insufferably formal even to his own ears.
She was out of her depth but struggled on. “Has your mama forgiven you?”
“Yes.” It slipped out before he could stop it. “Have you?”
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