The Accidental Elopement (Scandalous Miss Brightwells Book 4)

by Beverley Oakley

  Katherine woke to the sound of the maid in her room stoking up the fire. She felt exhausted and disoriented, and when the girl opened the windows, letting in a rush of air that was not salt-laden, she nearly wept. She should have been at a seaside tavern, with Jack, about to embark upon the adventure of their lives.

  Instead, Mr Marwick awaited her downstairs. Well, she had to tell him. Not the truth, perhaps, as she was depending upon his goodwill to get her safely home again. But she would tell him that a night’s reflection had made her realise her desire to marry respectably; that it would devastate her parents if she slunk away in the dark of the night when she could have had a grand ceremony with all her relatives in attendance; that she’d acted with much too much haste. Yes, that ought to satisfy him.

  But she wouldn’t go down yet. No, a few more hours just might be enough time for her distraught family to discover her whereabouts. If her father were to burst into the tavern to drag her home, she’d be saved any awkwardness and, perhaps, anger, from Mr Marwick and then she could put this whole unfortunate episode behind her.

  Feeling slightly lighter of spirit, she finished her breakfast from the tray brought to her room, slept several hours longer, then went downstairs, arriving at the doorway to the private parlour at the same moment as her prospective groom.

  It was three in the afternoon, and he was looking anxious though his eyes lit up when he saw her. “My darling Katherine, I wasn’t sure if you’d changed your mind. I’ve been pacing the corridor by your room for hours.” He hurried forwards and gripped her hands, bringing them up to his lips. “Dare I hope that you are fired up at the prospect of spending the rest of your life in my care?” He lowered his head, murmuring against her lips, “I do swear I’ll be the gentlest and most considerate of husbands, my angel.”

  Katherine let him kiss her briefly. She felt awkward and unsure how she would broach the very difficult subject before her, but an excited cry from further up the passage made them break away abruptly.

  “Mr Marwick?” The shocked recognition was followed by a pause before the large and venerable society hostess whom Katherine remembered well from descriptions given to her by her mother, followed up her original question with, “Miss Fenton?”

  Mr Marwick chuckled as he took Katherine’s hand and led her towards the Countess of Lexington. “Lady Lexington, may I present my new wife, Mrs Marwick, no longer Miss Fenton. Yes, we’ve been wicked; we’ve just eloped, but we hope society will forgive us as it did your very own niece last year when she hastened across the border with a man who has now been welcomed into the family.”

  Lady Lexington hesitated as she was joined by the earl, their three daughters, and respective husbands. And then suddenly the passage seemed filled with half of London society offering Katherine and Freddy their best wishes.

  And amidst their gaiety and well wishes, Katherine knew that her fate was sealed.

  Part II

  Seven Years Later

  Chapter 15

  Jack stood on the stern of the SS Eglinton, and watched the shores of his homeland grow from a tiny speck in the distance, to discernible landmarks while he worked to suppress his excitement. A new phase of his life was about to begin, and after years of toil, travelling, a generous mentor and clever investments, he was returning to the land that had always occupied his heart, a self-made man with a substantial fortune.

  A new decade had begun, and he foresaw the forties as heralding an exciting era of innovation and prosperity for the British people. Trade routes were opening up, and that could only mean exciting and hitherto unthought-of opportunities for those with energy and an eye to the future like himself.

  So much had changed since Jack had first journeyed to foreign shores on the Hugh Lindsay. After a year in the West Indies, Jack had travelled to Bombay where he’d worked in various capacities these past six years. When he’d been taken under the wing of the astute but kindly Zebediah Worthington, three years before, Jack’s fortunes had soared.

  Now Jack was returning to England a prosperous merchant. He’d purchased an estate to please the worthy bride he’d chosen. The only daughter of his mentor, Odette had arrived in Bombay the previous year to visit her father and had left with him to return to England three months earlier.

  Strange, then, that Jack’s thoughts should be occupied so much by Katherine.

  When he’d left England, it had been the same. He’d thought more about the girl he loved during the long crossing than he had about the prospect of adventure and success. He’d not expected to feel such a sense of loss; as if the aching void could never be adequately filled now that he’d discovered what made him feel whole. He’d thought of writing to Katherine to beg her to join him if she felt as he did. He wanted to tell her that if she loved him, they’d find a way to make it work.

  What a green boy he’d been. He turned up the collar of his coat and wiped his spray-wet eyes with his sleeve. He’d wanted adventure, and he’d longed for Katherine’s spirited company but he’d been right to know that the two were quite incompatible.

  When the first letter from his mother had caught up with him three months after his departure, it had contained the news that Katherine had eloped with Freddy Marwick within a day of Jack sailing away. Before he’d boarded the boat even. That had wounded his pride more than he’d ever admit.

  All the hours that the howling wind had delayed the ship sailing, Jack had paced the small chamber of his Southampton tavern with only one wish: to see Katherine burst through the door, begging him to take her with him.

  And he could have. The captain, as it turned out, was travelling with his wife and three small children whose nursemaid had abandoned them on the eve of their departure. Katherine could have fulfilled the role had fate played into their hands. That is, if she’d been reckless enough to follow her heart and had chosen to elope with Jack rather than with the already established Marwick, now Lord Marples.

  Instead, she’d channelled her adventurous spirit into other directions, and following her marriage to Marwick, produced one child at last count.

  Well, he hoped she was happy. His mother’s last letter, received eight months previously, for Jack had been on the move, hinted at some cloud over Lord Marples’s reputation, but no doubt he’d overridden that. Freddy Marwick had money, position, and benefactors.

  Jack was proud of the fact that his own success hadn’t been secured by family connections. His adoptive father was a gentleman, but with no considerable fortune or influence, and he had his natural children to worry about. Patmore Farm was prosperous, but it was no grand estate like the one over which Katherine would now have dominion.

  Jack had always been conscious of his good fortune in being elevated from the foundling home. He knew nothing about his natural parents. There was nothing he could know; no information on record, meaning he must be extra enterprising in making his own way in the world.

  But soon Jack would have his own family. When the Eglantine reached shore before the sun set, he’d be greeted by the lovely daughter of the man to whom he owed so much—the young woman who was to become his wife in six weeks.

  Jack had not taken much notice of Odette Worthington when she’d first arrived but after her father had fallen ill, he’d found himself increasingly called upon to squire Odette around Bombay in her father’s stead, with Zebediah Worthington’s sanction.

  Almost without Jack realising it, an understanding appeared to have been accepted by old Mr Worthington and his daughter that intimated marriage. Six months before, with a great sense of inevitability, Jack had made a formal proposal that had been accepted.

  Now, within hours, he’d be greeted by his bride-to-be and conveyed back to the London townhouse in which she lived with her ailing father.

  It certainly wasn’t an unpleasing prospect. Odette was lively and engaging. In fact, she had all the attributes he’d have looked for in a wife, had he been looking. But perhaps it was better this way. Odette seemed delighted by the a
rrangement. In the last two postal deliveries, he’d received an accumulated six gushing letters from her.

  He tried to remember what she looked like as he leant over the railing and closed his eyes against the spray. Instead, he saw Katherine’s face, impish and lively, the dimples in her cheeks popping out when she smiled at him, the sparkle in her eyes when she caught his gaze upon her, the limpid, dreamy look that came over her when he held her in his arms.

  But Katherine was out of reach now. Her family would have grown, and she’d be weighed down by the cares and responsibilities of being, no doubt, one of London’s notable society matrons. He could well envisage Katherine excelling in whatever role she undertook and, as Lord Marples’s wife, she was no doubt immersed in charitable activities while smoothing the way for her husband’s career to climb.

  Giving himself a mental shake, he forced his mind back to Odette. He supposed it was not surprising that he couldn’t remember the colour of her eyes, whereas every time he saw a sapphire, he was reminded of Katherine’s and the way they’d sparkle as she was about to impart some secret piece of information or amusing on dit.

  Of course, it wasn’t surprising since he’d only known Odette for the three months she’d spent in Bombay with her father, while he’d known Katherine much longer than that. Not as an adult, of course, but from childhood. That would explain why his memory was so sharp with respect to his childhood friend and not so much with regard to the woman he’d marry. One didn’t marry childhood friends who eloped the very same day that the fellow she had professed to love was sailing off to new adventures.

  Of course, he’d make a joke of it, when they met once more. He couldn’t tell her how wounded he’d been at the time. Boyish pride; nothing more.

  Odette. That’s where his future was. With the lovely, russet-haired young woman who’d lost her slipper when descending the stairs of Government House to her carriage. When a street urchin had snatched it up then disappeared, Jack had chivalrously swept her into his arms and carried her to her conveyance. What more romantic start to a lifelong union could there be for a man like Jack, a romantic at heart?

  Nevertheless, he was looking forward to seeing Katherine once more, and seeing through his own eyes how the last seven years had changed her.

  It was not a plan that won approval from his intended, he learned, after their mutually tender welcome and lingering embrace. And truly, it was lovely to hold a soft, beautiful woman in his arms, and to kiss her and know that his marital path was set. Jack was not a philanderer with a roving eye, so the occasional dalliances over the past few years had always been unsatisfactory due to the discovery he was not with a woman whose acquaintance he wished to further in the direction of marriage.

  Now he would be married before the end of the summer, and he’d install Odette in the handsome townhouse in Cavendish Square he’d purchased; though now he’d accompanied her, with her aunt in tow, back to her father’s townhouse immediately after their reunion at the docks.

  “I think it’s very unwise, dearest,” Odette was saying, as she curled her soft little hand about his. He was seated on the arm of the sofa on which she’d ensconced herself; her flounced skirts taking up most of the available seating. But he preferred it like this. Odette’s aunt had discreetly taken up position in a dark corner where she was bent over her tatting while Odette’s father rested in his darkened room upstairs.

  “Of course, I’m not jealous that you’d wish to see a female friend you’ve known since childhood, but I do think you should bide your time. For the sake of what people will say about me and her.”

  Odette had spent more than an hour pressed up against Jack in the chaise that had transported them to London, her happy chatter and clear enjoyment at being allowed so close to him resonating with Jack. She was witty and informed and, he thought, quite the perfect choice, putting aside the few occasions during his last months in Bombay where he’d wondered if this engagement had been a little rushed and peremptory.

  “Bide my time?” he queried plucking at the knee of his trousers, newly made up for him at London’s most exclusive tailor. How things had changed. Jack had money; all of it acquired through his own hard work and shrewdness. “I haven’t seen Katherine in seven years. If she hears I’m in London and haven’t seen her, she’ll be offended.” A thought occurred to him. “You don’t imagine her husband will be jealous? Is that it?”

  “It’s because she has no husband that I think you should bide your time.”

  Jack blinked.

  “Darling, she can’t be that good a friend if you didn’t know she was widowed seven months ago.” Odette laughed at his shock. “So it’s certainly not good form to entertain a male caller, regardless of how long you’ve known each other.” Odette tapped him playfully on the nose with her fan and tickled his ear, about to change the subject, Jack felt sure.

  “Widowed? No, I didn’t know,” he said, feeling unaccountably unsettled by the news, though he couldn’t quite decide why for he’d never liked Marwick particularly, and had thought him definitely not good enough for Katherine.

  “Well, she is, and the fact that she’s wallowing in this terrible scandal right now, means I think it could be misconstrued if you call on Lady Marples at this time.”

  “Scandal?”

  Odette raised her eyebrows. “She’s mired in it! Goodness, Jack, you tell me she’s an old friend but you know nothing about her, it seems.”

  “Well, I didn’t know anything about a scandal,” Jack muttered. Dismay churned in his stomach. Poor Katherine.

  “Her husband was hardly a gentleman, though that was no excuse for what she did. Ouch, Jack. You’re holding my hand much too tightly.”

  Jack released his grip and ran his fingers around the rim of his shirt collar, which suddenly seemed too tight.

  “What did she do?”

  “Some say it was taking a lover that killed Lord Marples. But that’s just a rumour.”

  This was getting a little too much for Jack. He wanted to prise every last bit of information from Odette that he could, and he wasn’t sure if she was testing him over his interest in Katherine which he had to admit was considerable.

  “I thought innocent young ladies like you didn’t discuss such matters,” he remarked more mildly than he felt.

  “In six weeks, I shall be a worldly married lady, and I believe it entirely appropriate to start testing my wings, so to speak. To tell you the truth, I’m just repeating what I heard my aunt whispering to Mrs Gunning the other night, and I wanted to see how you’d respond. Are you shocked? Disappointed? Or are you not surprised? After all, Lady Marples scandalised everyone by eloping with Lord Marples, whom she must have known her parents would have forbidden her to marry, even though everyone put on as good a show about being accepting about it and Lord Fenton even paid off some of Lord Marples’s debts.”

  “My mama wrote nothing about this, and she’s a friend of Katherine’s parents, Lord and Lady Fenton.”

  Odette raised her hand to cup Jack’s cheek. “I’m sure she had much more important things to talk about than Lord Marples’s gaming debts. He lost the most enormous sum of money not long before he eloped with your friend, Katherine. She must have been quite madly in love with him if she was prepared to embark upon married life in such dire circumstances, for do you know that the creditors came from all over, until he couldn’t take it anymore and ran away, before members of his family came to his rescue and started paying them off so he and Lady Marples weren’t starving in the streets. Finally, it seems, Lord Fenton parted with a small fortune so his daughter could hold her head up in society. Though that took some time, I’m told. But let’s not talk about these wicked people with whom we have nothing in common, for you, Jack, are clever and cautious and wouldn’t dream of acting with the kind of haste that makes such a mess of things. Which is why you’re my ideal husband, and now that I see that Aunt Sharp has nodded off, won’t you kiss me again?”

  By the end of the eveni
ng, Jack could almost believe he was the happiest man alive. Odette’s delight at seeing him after their months apart was touching and gratifying, and it was only with the slightest effort he managed to whip up the enthusiasm required as he shared with her the musings of their future together.

  He was a little surprised she thought his townhouse needed such complete refurbishment when he took her there to show it off. He’d bought it partly because he was fond of the old-fashioned panelling and wall colourings, but if redecorating to Odette’s taste would make her as happy as she said it would, then he certainly had the funds to gratify her wishes.

  So, as the hours ticked by, and he responded to her happy chatter, he found himself thinking only a little of Katherine. Odette didn’t wish him to call on her, but in a couple of days when Odette could be wholly reassured of his affections, Jack intended to broach the subject of a visit, once again. Regardless of Odette’s feelings, he wanted to see how Katherine did these days.

  If nothing else, he owed a pilgrimage to honour the intense flame that, nevertheless, had burned itself out—certainly in her heart—the moment he’d left the country.

  Chapter 16

  Katherine heard the clock strike five o’ clock. In four hours she would go out.

  Furtively, she took in her reflection in the long, wide mirror above the mantelpiece as she attempted a confident sashay from the wall to the window.

  It was hard to appear confident when she no longer had a roof over her head. Freddy’s death seven months ago from a sudden fever had seen the creditors take everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor. The ancestral home, which had not been entailed, had long since been sold.