For Deader or Worse

by Sheri Cobb South

  “I—I don’t want to put anyone to any trouble—” Pickett began.

  “If Mrs. Brantley finds she cannot extend hospitality to Mr. Pickett, then I fear I must offer her my regrets,” said Julia, with steel in her voice.

  Lady Runyon frowned. “I see no reason why she should not do so, Julia. I hope you do not intend to fly up into the boughs at every perceived slight. However, I must caution you to brace yourself for a shock, my dear. Lord Buckleigh has remarried.”

  Now that he was, thankfully, no longer the cynosure of all eyes, Pickett found his mind beginning to wander, for there are few things more tiresome than to listen to others exchange reminiscences about a set of persons with whom one is unacquainted. But at the suggestion of a rival for his wife’s affections, his attention was once again fully engaged.

  “Lord Buckleigh, remarried?” echoed Julia, turning rather pale. “When did it happen, Mama?”

  “Several months ago—October, I believe. They have only recently returned from their wedding trip.”

  “You never mentioned it in your letters.”

  “You had enough sorrow of your own to deal with—or so I thought,” Lady Runyon added darkly, glancing at Pickett.

  “What is she like, Mama? Have you met her?”

  “I saw her at church last Sunday—a very young woman, and pretty enough, I suppose, if one admires that type. But we have not yet been introduced. As I said, Lord and Lady Buckleigh have only just taken up residence at Buckleigh Hall.”

  Julia winced at the sound of the lady’s title, and Pickett feared the worst. Seeing his stricken expression, she explained hastily, “Lord Buckleigh was married to my sister.”

  Pickett had not known until that moment that she had a sister, but Lady Runyon clearly did not wish to discuss the matter further. She laid her napkin beside her plate and rose from the table. “If you will come with me, Julia, we shall leave the men to their port.”

  Something in the lady’s expression gave Pickett to understand that Julia would not enjoy her tête-à-tête with her mother any more than he would his own discussion with her father. They exchanged a glance of mutual sympathy, and Julia followed her mother from the room.

  * * *

  As the ladies left the dining room, the butler slipped inside and fetched two glasses and a decanter of ruby-colored liquid from the sideboard, placing them at Sir Thaddeus’s elbow before quietly effacing himself. Alone with his new son-in-law, the squire filled both glasses and pushed one across the table to Pickett.

  “Now that the womenfolk are gone, let’s have the truth with no roundaboutation,” Sir Thaddeus said brusquely. “How much do you want?”

  “I—I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “What is your price?” Sir Thaddeus asked by way of explanation. “How much will it take to persuade you to return to London and make no further claims on my daughter’s affections?”

  Pickett could only stare, appalled. “I have no price, sir, but if I could be persuaded to do as you suggest, you may be sure that it would require more than you or any other man could offer.”

  “You—you scoundrel!” Sir Thaddeus exclaimed, turning quite purple with rage.

  “Sir Thaddeus, I’m afraid you are laboring under a misapprehension. Your daughter and I are married—married twice over, in fact, once in Scotland and once in England. The marriage has been consummated,” he added for emphasis, willing himself not to blush. “If I were to abandon her as you suggest, you would condemn her to a life of loneliness, for there can be no undoing it, not at any price.”

  “Misapprehension, eh? Oh no, sirrah, I understand perfectly!” The squire set his glass down with such force that the liquid sloshed over the side, leaving a blood-red stain spreading over the immaculate white of the linen tablecloth. “As for her being lonely, I’m not sure but what I wouldn’t rather see her living in adultery with a gentleman who is her equal, than legally wed to the sort of fellow who would take advantage of her gratitude and her generous nature in order to coerce her into a union that any fool must see is unworthy of her!”

  “There was no coercion, sir. The decision was a mutual one. As for the suitability of the match, I can assure you that no one is more aware of my own unworthiness than I am. But while there may be any number of men more deserving of your daughter’s hand, I defy any of them to love her more than I do.”

  Sir Thaddeus studied him for a long moment, then let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t deny you were indispensable to her during that business with Lord Fieldhurst,” he conceded grudgingly.

  “If that is true, it was because I loved her even then, and considered it an honor to be of service to her. Believe me, sir, the idea that I might profit from my efforts on her behalf never entered my mind.”

  “ ‘Profit’? An interesting choice of word, Mr. Pickett,” Sir Thaddeus barked, scowling at his son-in-law. “I must tell you that I don’t think much of any man who is content to live as a petticoat pensioner.”

  “No, sir, neither do I,” Pickett said, relieved to find one point, at least, on which they could agree. “I have twenty-five shillings a week on which to support a wife. I have been sending half of that to my father in—to my father, but I intend to write him that I can no longer do so now that I have taken a wife.”

  “Is your father retired, then?”

  Pickett nodded. “In a manner of speaking.” He supposed being arrested for petty thievery and transported to Botany Bay constituted retirement, of a sort. “I know my earnings do not amount to much by the standards to which your daughter is accustomed, but there are also the occasional compensations for criminals convicted, as well as private commissions, and I intend to do all I can to rise in my profession. My magistrate seems to feel my prospects are good.”

  “You appear to have it all worked out,” scoffed the squire. “With twenty-five shillings a week, I suppose my Julia’s four hundred pounds per annum hardly weighed with you at all.”

  Pickett frowned in confusion. “Begging your pardon, sir, but—what four hundred pounds?”

  “Her widow’s jointure amounts to four hundred pounds annually.”

  “But surely that must have ended with her remarriage,” Pickett pointed out with growing unease.

  “Aye, in the normal way of things it would have. But in the marriage negotiations with Fieldhurst, I insisted that in the event of his lordship’s early demise, she should be free to marry again without penalty. Don’t know what I was thinking—I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time, given the difference in their ages—but you may be sure that I had no thought of enabling her to throw herself away on the likes of you!”

  Pickett hardly heard this unflattering speech, so perturbed was he at the revelation that he had married a lady of independent means. “Sir Thaddeus, may I—may I be excused?” He had no idea if such an abrupt departure from the dining room was proper, and he didn’t really care; he wanted to have a word with his wife, and that as soon as possible.

  “What, already? Well, if you’ve finished—” The squire’s frowning glance took in Pickett’s untouched wine-glass. “—we’ll rejoin the ladies.”

  The two men rose from the table, but as they approached the door, Sir Thaddeus laid a restraining hand on Pickett’s arm. When he spoke, it was in a much altered tone.

  “One more thing, Mr. Pickett,” he said, his voice almost timid. “When we met in London, you were made aware of certain—activities—of mine. I would be obliged to you if you wouldn’t mention them to Julia.”

  Pickett did not have to ask for an explanation; he well remembered his interview with Julia’s father in the days following the murder of Lord Fieldhurst, when he’d discovered that Sir Thaddeus, who had ostensibly hurried to London in support of his daughter, had in fact already been in Town for the purpose of procuring at a price those feminine attentions of which his wife’s uncertain health had in recent years deprived him.

  “I may not have a gentleman’s education, sir, but I am well aware of the diffe
rence between facts uncovered in the performance of my duty and appropriate topics of drawing room conversation. As for my mentioning such a thing to your daughter, even in private, I can only say that if you believe me capable of revealing to her information which could only cause her pain, well, I can understand your revulsion at the idea of her being married to me.”

  The squire looked a bit shamefaced, but his embarrassment was leavened with relief. “That’s all right, then,” he said, and led his son-in-law to the drawing room where the ladies waited.

  * * *

  Having reached the drawing room, Lady Runyon sank onto the sofa with a sigh of bombazine skirts and looked up at her daughter with reproachful eyes. “And so you are married again—to a Bow Street Runner, no less!—with poor Fieldhurst hardly cold in his grave,” she chided gently. “Really, Julia, what were you thinking?”

  Julia took a seat at the opposite end of the sofa. “I was thinking that I love Mr. Pickett and want to spend the rest of my life with him,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly.

  Lady Runyon sighed. “Oh, he’s a good-looking boy, I’ll grant you that.”

  “He is much more than a ‘good-looking boy,’ Mama! How can you say such a thing, after hearing how he saved my life on more than one occasion? And I did not even tell you the whole, in order to spare his blushes, but he rescued us both from the Drury Lane fire by fashioning a rope from the curtains and climbing down from a third-tier box while carrying me on his back.”

  Lady Runyon appeared a bit nonplussed by this revelation, but rallied quickly. “I’m sure no one is questioning the young man’s bravery. Still, I can’t help thinking poor Fieldhurst never would have allowed you to become embroiled in so dangerous a situation.”

  Julia plucked at her skirts, a nervous gesture which betrayed her growing agitation. “No, for it never would have occurred to Frederick that I might have insights from which he might benefit—which was Mr. Pickett’s whole purpose in inviting me to accompany him to the theatre in the first place.”

  Lady Runyon cast her eyes heavenward. “Next you will tell me this Mr. Pickett loves you for your mind.”

  “Yes, he does!” Julia snapped, along with the last fraying edges of her temper. “For my mind, and my face, and my character, and—”

  “And your four hundred pounds per annum?” her mother asked with deceptive sweetness. “What does he think of that?”

  This simple question had the effect of stealing the wind from Julia’s sails. “I—I’m not sure if he even knows about them,” she confessed, casting her mind back to the meeting with her husband’s solicitor during which Lord Fieldhurst’s will was read. To be sure, John—Mr. Pickett, as she had thought of him then—had been present for part of that interview, but she was not certain if he would have heard about the dispensation of her widow’s jointure, nor remembered it even if he had.

  “And it never even occurred to you to wonder? Really, Julia, how could you be so foolish?”

  “Pray do not speak to me as if I were a child, Mama! Recall that I was married for six years. I am quite old enough to know what I want!”

  “What you want?” Lady Runyon echoed scornfully. “A fine world this would be if young girls went about marrying whomever they wanted!”

  “ ‘Young girls’? Mama, I am twenty-seven years old!”

  “Are you indeed?” Lady Runyon asked in mild surprise. “I suppose you must seem younger when you throw a childish tantrum.”

  Julia closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. “I beg your pardon, Mama.”

  “But as I was about to say, you cannot only consider what you want, Julia. You have a responsibility to marry wisely.”

  “Have I, indeed? To whom, pray?”

  “Need you ask? Any children born of such a union as yours must surely suffer for their father’s inferior status—”

  “There won’t be any children, Mama,” Julia said in a flat voice. “In six years with Frederick, I never showed the least sign of—of being with child.”

  “Very well, then don’t think of children. Think instead of your upbringing, of your lineage, of what is due your name—”

  “Are you telling me to think of you, Mama, that it is my responsibility to please you in my choice of a husband? I have done that once already, when I married Frederick. Is that not enough?”

  “Julia, my dear, you wound me to the quick!” cried Lady Runyon, pressing one arthritic hand to her heart. “Next you will be saying I coerced you into marriage with Lord Fieldhurst!”

  Julia sighed. “No, for I was dazzled with his rank as only a nineteen-year-old girl can be. But I have paid for my mistakes—paid dearly for them!—and I expect to do better this time. I knew you could not approve of John, at least not until you have come to know him better, but I had hoped you would at least try to be happy for me.”

  Lady Runyon pulled a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “My dear child, I do so want you to be happy! You are all I have left in the world.”

  “I know, Mama,” Julia said gently, patting her mother’s hand. “I miss her, too. But Claudia has been gone these dozen years and more, and I must live my own life, for I can’t live hers. No one can.”

  “I’m usually not such a watering pot,” observed Lady Runyon, unfolding her handkerchief and refolding it to expose a dry surface. “I sometimes go whole days without thinking of poor Claudia at all. I suppose it is Lord Buckleigh’s bringing home a new bride that has made me feel it so keenly. That, along with Major Pennington’s return.”

  “Oh, is Jamie a major now?” asked Julia, eager to give her mother’s thoughts a happier direction. “He must be doing very well in the army.”

  Lady Runyon gave a disdainful sniff into her handkerchief. “He has certainly prospered, but I cannot pretend to like him. I will always believe that he knew more about Claudia’s disappearance than he ever let on. Why else, pray, would he have left Oxford so precipitously to run off and join the army? And less than twenty-four hours after she was last seen!”

  “Mama, you cannot mean to suggest that Jamie would—would do her an injury! Why, he adored her! Had it not been for Lord Buckleigh, he might have married her.”

  “But who is to say that love cannot turn to hate, once it is rejected?”

  “If Jamie had any such inclination—which I do not believe, not by a long chalk!—surely he would not have waited until two years after the wedding to act on them.”

  “Yes, dear, but—”

  Before Lady Runyon could voice her rebuttal, the door opened and Sir Thaddeus entered the room, followed by his new son-in-law. Pickett’s expression held so much of dazed consternation that Julia wondered exactly what her father had said to him. His eyes met hers in a silent plea, and she deemed it high time he was rescued from her less than welcoming family. Fortunately, she had the perfect excuse ready to hand.

  “John, is your head troubling you? Perhaps you should seek your bed early tonight. Mama, Papa, may we please be excused? We left Reading very early this morning, and Mr. Pickett’s head injury was aggravated by the indifferent state of the roads.”

  “I had no reason to suppose you were not coming alone, Julia, so I didn’t have a second bedchamber made ready,” Lady Runyon fretted. “I’ve put you in your old room, but if you can wait, Mr. Pickett, I will have the housekeeper prepare another.”

  “Thank you, Mama, but we shall do very well in one,” Julia said, and bore her grateful husband out of the drawing room and up the stairs.

  No sooner had they reached the second-floor bedroom and closed the door than Julia turned and buried her face in his chest. “Hold me, John.”

  Pickett, nothing loth, wrapped his arms around her, his own concerns temporarily forgotten. “Was it as bad as all that?”

  “Worse.” She let out a long sigh. “I know I should have written and told them but, well, I didn’t want to give Mama an opportunity to prepare her arguments. Heaven knows she was bad enough without the benef
it of advance warning.”

  Whatever his shortcomings, Pickett was not stupid, and he knew he must tread lightly. Unlike the Fieldhursts, whom he knew she took a certain satisfaction in thwarting, the squire and his lady were her own flesh and blood. He did not want to be the cause of a rift between his wife and her parents; in fact, he was not at all certain that, if he said anything against them, she would not feel compelled to come to their defense. And so he said nothing at all, but led her to the wing chair before the fire (which had already been lit in preparation for their—rather, for her—arrival), sat down, and settled her on his knee, whereupon she leaned against him and put her head on his shoulder.

  “Papa treats me as if I were still nine years old, and that is bad enough,” she complained, while he took her hand and kissed each fingertip in turn, “but with Mama I find myself acting as if I were still nine years old, which is infinitely worse, and—John! You aren’t listening!”

  “Yes, I am. I heard every word. You were saying your mama makes you act as if you were still nine years old.” He frowned down at the hand he still held. “Now you’ve made me lose my place. I shall have to start over again,” he said, and did so.

  “She doesn’t make me, exactly, for it is my own fault. It is only that Mama—that Mama—that she—oh, bother Mama!” she exclaimed and, snatching her hand from his, pulled his head down to hers so that his kisses might land on her lips, where they belonged.

  It was not until quite some time later, after the candles were snuffed and they lay cocooned together in the bed she had slept in as a girl, that Pickett recalled the question he had meant to ask.

  “My lady,” he murmured against her hair, “is it true that you have an income of four hundred pounds a year?”

  “Mm-hm,” she mumbled, barely awake.

  He twisted one of her golden curls around his finger, considering her answer for a long moment before posing another question. “Would you still have married me if—”