A Radical Arrangement

by Ashford, Jane

  Violet started for the servants’ hall, slightly hampered by the cascade of ruffles at the hem of her white dress. She jerked the fabric out of her way. She hated white, and was all too aware that the hue did not flatter her. It washed out her pale complexion, her sandy hair and gray eyes. Put her in white—in any pastel, really—and she practically faded into the wallpaper. Of course, this didn’t matter to Grandmamma. An unmarried girl wore pale colors, and that was that. The rules were not to be questioned, even when they made one look a complete frump. And Violet’s mother existed firmly under her mother-in-law’s thumb.

  Catching movement in the corner of her eye, Violet paused before a long mirror on the corridor wall. Her features were good, if she did say so—straight nose, well-shaped lips, eyes a lucent gray. If allowed to make something of them, with a more fashionable haircut and perhaps just a touch of color for her cheeks…? Violet imagined her grandmother’s horror at the latter idea. She imagined it for several seconds.

  How she hated ruffles. And this dress had far too many, cluttering the silhouette, obscuring the lines of her form. She’d seen gowns at London balls that would have accentuated the subtle curves she definitely possessed, in colors and fabrics that would flatter rather than subdue.

  The question popped into her mind: What would Nathaniel think if he came upon her naked?

  Violet flushed again. The rosy hue was quite becoming. She stared at her reflection and acknowledged that it was going to be quite…interesting to see what Nathaniel thought. Their match was the union of two great families. And as Violet’s grandmother never tired of repeating, it wasn’t about her. Nathaniel needed a wife who could be a proper duchess. But perhaps he needed other things as well. Violet watched her mirror image smile in a quite unfamiliar way.

  She scarcely recognized herself. It was as if impulses long stifled were surfacing in the mirror, summoned by the sight of her almost husband. Violet blinked. If her grandmother, or her father, or her mother came along now, she’d be in for a scold. Fierce, cold, fearful—they each had their way of pointing out her shortcomings. Of which she seemed to have a never-ending supply. At times, it had even seemed to Violet that her family valued their criticisms more than her future prospects.

  She was crushing the hated ruffles in both hands, she realized. She opened her hands.

  It didn’t matter. Nathaniel had offered for her. In a few hours she would be a married woman, and everything would be different. She could do as she pleased. She would no longer live with her grandmother. She would not be told what to wear and whom she could see. She would not be scrutinized for flaws at every turn. In her own household, she would be the arbiter. In fact, she had a list of things Grandmamma had forbidden, and she intended to indulge in them as soon as might be. Violet nodded at her reflection with a steely gaze that would have startled those who thought they knew her.

  A footman appeared at the end of the corridor. Violet dropped her eyes and moved away from the mirror, resuming her mantle of sweet compliance. “John, would you tell Cates that his lordship wants him? The bell is…broken.” Violet wondered what that prim valet would think when he found Nathaniel naked with a wolf skin? But perhaps he was used to pranks; he had been with Nathaniel for a long time, and it seemed the Duke of Langford’s sons were addicted to them.

  “Mr. Cates seems to be out this morning, your ladyship,” replied the footman, his face stiff with disapproval.

  “Out? Where?”

  “No one seems to know, your ladyship.”

  That was odd. Or… It must be part of the prank. Violet nodded to the footman and walked further along the corridor until she heard male voices from a small parlor on her right. Taking another step on paths forbidden by her grandmother, Violet eased the door open a crack and peeked through. All of Nathaniel’s brothers were gathered around the hearth, a very handsome conspiracy. Shamelessly, Violet eavesdropped.

  “This has gone far enough. We should take him some clothes,” said Alan.

  He was the youngest brother, and the only one married so far, Violet recalled. He lived in Oxford and did something at the university. Violet thought she might like his wife, Ariel. She hadn’t had a chance to find out because Grandmamma didn’t approve of her for some reason. She added an item to her list: get to know Ariel Gresham.

  “Nonsense,” said Robert. “It’s a challenge to his ingenuity.”

  Violet was well acquainted with both Robert and Sebastian. They were extremely fashionable young men and fixtures of the haut ton. Robert was known for his wit and Sebastian for the exquisite cut of his Guard’s uniforms.

  “He’s getting married in three hours,” Randolph pointed out.

  Thank you, thought Violet. Randolph was the clergyman. His parish was somewhere up north, and he was rarely in town. Violet had met him only twice before. Should a man of the cloth be pulling pranks involving nakedness and wolf skins?

  “Plenty of time,” said Sebastian.

  Who was notorious for being late to social engagements, Violet thought.

  “No, it isn’t,” said Alan.

  “I sent Violet to him,” said James.

  This fifth-oldest Gresham brother had just returned from a three-year naval mission that had taken him right around the world. Violet didn’t know him at all.

  The rest of them turned on him in a general babble of, “You what?”

  “I passed her on the stairs and told her Nathaniel needed to speak to her. Most urgently.” James grinned.

  Violet blinked. She had thought James the least striking of the brothers. His smile changed her opinion. It was full of vitality and perfectly charming.

  Randolph sank into an armchair. “What have we done? To expose a gently reared young lady…”

  Alan let out a long sigh.

  “She will have a nervous collapse,” said Robert, sounding rather awed. “She will fall into a fit of the vapors and never come out. Why have we heard no shrieks or running footsteps?”

  Was this what they thought of her? Violet was mortified. Her grandmother would say it was what she got for listening at doors. The same grandmother who had ensured that people saw Violet as a prudish, missish stick.

  “They’re getting married,” James said. “Whatever she sees…well, she’s going to see it anyway.”

  “With a wolf skin?” said Alan.

  Randolph made a choking sound.

  “If the old lady finds out…” began Sebastian.

  “We flee the country,” responded Robert. “James will find us a ship to the antipodes.”

  Violet had to stifle a laugh. She hadn’t realized how much she was going to enjoy being a Gresham. Suppressing a smile, she pushed the parlor door open and walked in. “What have you done with Cates?” she demanded.

  She was met with silence and a circle of staring blue masculine eyes.

  “Cates?” said Robert.

  “Nathaniel’s valet? He appears to be missing.”

  “Missing?” said Randolph.

  Violet turned to him, and he took a step back. “So I am told. Am I not speaking clearly? Perhaps if you returned our bell rope…?”

  “You know about the…” Alan’s voice trailed off.

  Violet raised her eyebrows. “I was just speaking to Nathaniel and…”

  “Nathaniel? In his room?” interrupted Robert.

  “In his room,” she confirmed. “With his lupine companion.”

  Robert’s mouth fell open. James burst out laughing. “I locked the valet in the garden shed,” he admitted.

  From the babble that broke out, Violet concluded that this had not been part of the plan. Pitching her voice to cut through it, she said, “You will release him immediately and send him to Nathaniel.” She fixed each brother in turn with a stern look. “Yes?”

  “Yes,” said Alan. The others nodded.

  With an answering
nod, Violet turned and went out.

  Silence followed. Finally, Robert spoke in hushed tones. “She sounded just like her grandmother.”

  This elicited another round of solemn nods. Except from James. “What’s wrong with you?” he said. “She seems like a capital girl to me.”

  Two

  The marriage of Nathaniel Gresham, Viscount Hightower, and Lady Violet Devere duly took place later that morning at the village church near the Deveres’ country home. His wardrobe returned from its hiding place, the viscount was handsome and composed in a dark blue coat. No one, seeing him stand so calmly before the altar, would have imagined him waking naked under a wolf skin a few hours earlier. The bride looked resolute, and slightly washed out, in a gown of pale pink. Those present were too accustomed to her wan appearance to wonder at the wardrobe choice.

  The simple ceremony was witnessed by the couple’s families and close friends. On one side of the church, the elder Langfords exhibited more genial dignity than visible joy. Indeed, the duke, a tall, spare, handsome man of sixty or so, exchanged at least one unfathomable look with his duchess. Adele Gresham, though well past fifty, was exceedingly striking in a blue ensemble that complemented hair of a deep rich color between chestnut and strawberry. She sat very straight. Tall, angular, with arching brows and an aquiline nose, she was known for not suffering fools, and the one glance she let slip to the opposite rank of pews suggested that this ability was under considerable strain.

  For their part, the bride’s parents seemed oddly subdued. They looked more often to the earl’s formidable mother than to their marrying offspring. The Dowager Countess of Moreley glowered in the front pew, bent a little forward, both hands resting on the head of her ebony cane. At seventy-six, with her prominent features accentuated by age, her once fine figure sabotaged by gravity, she’d been compared by one quaking sprig of fashion to a cathedral gargoyle. If she had ever exhibited an errant sense of humor, her gown of stone-gray sarcenet might have been seen as wry defiance of this characterization. But no one had ever accused Violet’s grandmother of whimsy. Next to her the stocky, sandy-haired earl and his plump, anxious wife were obviously mere retinue. Only Violet’s younger brothers, sixteen and fourteen, added vitality to the Devere pew.

  To those who knew them, the groom’s bevy of brothers seemed a bit subdued as well. They put it down to the solemnity of the occasion, unaware of Nathaniel’s mustering of the troops once he was dressed and breakfasted. He’d lined them up in a vacant parlor like a company of soldiers, acknowledged the depths of their ingenuity and the hilarity of the results, and informed them that the remainder of his wedding day was to be prank-free. Walking down the row, he’d fixed each brother with a stern eye, and received solemn promises in return. When he cared to exert it, Nathaniel had a natural authority that could not be denied.

  Sebastian stood up with the viscount at the altar. Alan sat next to their parents with his lovely wife Ariel at his side. The rest filled the second pew with four sets of wide shoulders, and there was not a peep from any of them, not even James.

  Afterward, guests and prominent neighbors joined the family at the house for a celebration of the wedding. Reception rooms filled with a buzz of conversation, and chattering groups spilled out into the beautiful June day through French doors open to the gardens.

  “Oh, my,” declared one lady as the Langford brothers paused on the terrace for a brotherly toast. “I must say that the sight of them all together is quite breathtaking.”

  “It’s the first time they’ve all been gathered in some years. Lord James has been at sea,” responded her friend, who prided herself on knowing every tiny tidbit of gossip.

  “And only the eldest married?”

  “And the youngest, Lord Alan.”

  “How odd.”

  “Oh, it was quite the mystery. Some country nobody called Bolton, from Cornwall.” She bent closer to murmur in her friend’s ear. “Though some say her mother was an actress.”

  “No!”

  The other nodded. “And a dear ‘friend’ of the Prince Regent.”

  “Ah. So that’s how…?”

  The gossip looked frustrated. “The details of the match are unclear. But Lord Sebastian, now, he is recently engaged. Announced in a perfectly straightforward way.”

  “He’s the taller one, with the side whiskers?”

  “Cavalry regiment,” was the laconic reply. “He snagged Georgina Stane.”

  “The heiress?”

  “Indeed. Lord Sebastian beat out a whole crowd of suitors.”

  The second lady looked impressed, but dubious. “Has he met her family?”

  “He must have. They courted through most of the season.”

  “Oh, her family does not go up to London. I believe Lady Georgina was staying with her aunt.” At her friend’s inquiring look, the lady added, “I’ve heard the Stanes are rather…eccentric.”

  “Indeed?”

  Eyes bright, the lady bent closer to whisper.

  On a sofa in the largest parlor, Violet’s grandmother was holding forth to a captive audience. “Of course, the Devere family goes back to the Conqueror on both sides. The Langford dukedom was only granted in 1683. Charles the second, you know. Not what you would call…really sound.”

  Passing behind her, Nathaniel wanted to mutter that his ancestor had already been an earl at the time, but he didn’t. Arguing with the dowager countess of Moreley was useless. She could never be convinced that her opinions were wrong, and she was only too delighted to explain the stupidity of those who didn’t share them.

  Nathaniel moved on, conscious of glances following him and remarks being made. He’d attended scores of parties since his early youth, and attracted notice at many of them, for the sake of his rank and position. He’d never come to enjoy it, and today was worse. As the groom, he was the continual center of attention.

  He paused in a doorway between rooms, looking for Violet, and heard his brother James’s voice from one side. “I put away a goodly bit of prize money during the war, and I’m thinking it’s time to find a nice English girl and get leg-shackled.”

  “If you think of it as ‘shackled—’” began Alan’s wife Ariel.

  “Just an expression,” James interrupted. “I’ve heard you’re quite the matchmaker.”

  “Well, when you come to visit us next month, we shall see,” said Ariel. “I can introduce you to some young ladies…”

  “Not bluestockings, mind,” said James. “Alan’s the one for books and such.”

  Nathaniel grinned as Ariel agreed, and moved on into the crowd.

  * * *

  Violet wondered if the toasts and congratulations and evaluating glances would ever end—particularly those from the people who clearly wondered how she’d managed such a match. Those made her want to pour red wine down the front of her wretched pink dress until it turned a more flattering color. Except she also wanted to drink the wine—lots of it. And from the way her grandmother occasionally frowned at her, she probably knew it. Violet was surprised Grandmamma hadn’t marched over and taken her glass away from her.

  Looking happy, making happy meaningless conversation, was exhausting. Not that she wasn’t happy. She was. Of course she was. Or, at least, she was very glad the wedding was done. She was excited to get on with her new life. She appreciated Nathaniel’s steady presence, and the good wishes of her real friends. But how she longed to get away! None of these people could imagine the pressure that had been building up in her over all these years of being the good girl—even years after she didn’t feel like a girl at all. They had no notion of the familial conspiracy that made certain every hint of rebellion was squelched. She’d been part of it; she knew that. She’d given in to the frowns and orders.

  But that was over now, and with freedom so near, the desire for it was pushing at her like floodwater straining at a dam. She herself h
adn’t understood precisely what it would be like once she was actually married. She was afraid something would burst out before all these wedding guests and she would go whirling and chattering among them like a bedlamite. The image called up the memory of Nathaniel naked with the wolf skin. Here were scenes to set all of society on its ear. The idea had a strange attraction. She could almost wish to see the faces of Nathaniel’s brothers, who thought her such a buttoned-up miss. But it wasn’t going to happen. She retained more self-control than that.

  The minutes and hours dragged interminably, but finally they were going out to the carriage. People followed to wave and call farewells. The door was shut, the horses given their heads, and they were off on the three-hour drive to the manor where they were to spend the first two weeks of their marriage. Violet watched until the gates of her old home disappeared around a bend in the road. “Thank God that is over,” she said then, referring to the entire chapter of her early life.

  Nathaniel looked a bit surprised at her vehemence. “Are you worn-out? Your mother thought a country wedding would be less tiring…”

  “No, Grandmamma would not be so unfashionable as to remain in London an instant after the season ended,” she corrected.

  “Ah.”

  There was no need to say more. Her grandmother was an established sore point. She had found things to criticize even in the estimable Viscount Hightower. “And I’m not tired. Except of…” Violet let the sentence die. There was no need to burden Nathaniel with complaints about her endless “girlhood.” Particularly now that it was over.

  After waiting politely to see if she would continue, he said, “I think you will like Hightower. The countryside thereabouts is thought to be very beautiful.”