by M. C. Beaton
What on earth are they doing? thought the anguished cook, but determined not to betray them. “Yes, I believe the Deveneys and the Pages are related,” she said, amazed that her voice, not practiced in lying, should sound so calm and steady.
“So Sir Charles is not married?”
“Not as far as I know, my lord.”
He felt relieved—and at the same time disappointed—that the saintly Sir Charles was still on his pedestal.
“Thank you, Mrs. Friendly. I was sure it was all a hum. You may congratulate me.”
“Why, my lord?”
“On my engagement to Miss Fanny.”
“Oh, to be sure. I do, my lord.”
“Splendid woman,” commented Mr. Robinson when Mrs. Friendly had left. “The one good thing about this damp and shoddy place.”
Lord Bohun left, but when his carriage had reached the road he called on his coachman to stop. He sat there, biting his thumb. No! This was all wrong. There was definitely a bad smell about this! The rich Deveneys and the rich Pages? But what was it Mr. Robinson had said? Ask the vicar. He called to his coachman to turn about and drive into the village and stop at the church.
The church door was open. He walked straight in, up to the altar, and turned left to the vestry. There on a stand stood the large parish register secured by a chain. He opened it and began to read carefully through the births, marriages, and deaths without coming across either the name Page or Deveney.
Again that feeling of relief mixed with disappointment.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Lord Bohun swung round and found himself looking at the gentle and rather sheeplike features of the Reverend Thwyte-Simpson. “Miss Partington is taking tea with me,” said the vicar, “and my maid told us she had just seen a gentleman entering the church.”
“I was looking through your register for a record of the marriage of friends of mine,” said Lord Bohun, now wishing he were on the way to London and feeling rather silly.
“I should be able to help you. Their names?”
“Sir Charles Deveney and Miss Fanny Page.”
He was so sure he would hear a denial that he half turned away.
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Thwyte-Simpson. “Such a pretty wedding.”
“Could you show me the entry in the register?” Lord Bohun kept his voice low and even.
“Surely. Surely. Let me see. Yes, here is the christening of little Jimmy Wilkes, and before that… Well, bless my soul. Nothing here. And yet I stood by them when they both signed.”
“Let me see.” Lord Bohun almost elbowed the vicar aside. He ran his hands over the pages and into the spine … and then he found it. He found a thin, sharp sliver of paper, all that was left after Sir Charles had cut the page out. But if he shouted that Deveney was a fraud, perhaps this vicar might even start to lie—as that cook had undoubtedly lied. Deveney, curse him, could command extraordinary loyalty.
“Dear me, yes,” he realized the vicar was saying, “and Miss Partington was bridesmaid to Miss Fanny. A great day for her. Perhaps you would like to talk-?”
“Certainly,” interrupted Lord Bohun grimly. “Lead me to her.”
The vicar looked at him rather doubtfully but said mildly, “The vicarage is hard by the church.”
In the vicarage parlor, Lord Bohun bent over Miss Partington’s hand. She blushed and simpered.
“Lord Bohun is a friend of Sir Charles and Lady Deveney’s,” said the vicar. “I told him that you were Lady Deveney’s bridesmaid. Pray be seated, my lord, and I will ring for tea.”
“Such a wonderful day,” said Miss Partington, sighing. “My gown was of white muslin. I thought I should freeze to death, but when I got to the church, I was so elated that I felt warm all over.”
“And Miss Fanny, how did she look?” asked Lord Bohun, still hardly able to believe it was his Fanny.
“Oh, like a fairy with that crop of glossy black curls and those big brown eyes. And Sir Charles just arrived from the wars. I was surprised to learn that the first time they set eyes on each other was on their wedding day—and even more surprised to be asked to be bridesmaid, for I had never been intimate with the Pages, Mrs. Page damning me as poor genteel—when of course everyone knows the Pages to be as poor as church mice when they are not living on credit … and that goes for the Deveneys, too.” Miss Partington giggled. “Aren’t I naughty to gossip so.”
“But ‘tis said that Miss Fanny is an heiress, and Sir Charles, too, has come into a fortune.”
“I know Miss Fanny is not an heiress, but did hear Sir Charles had come home with a great fortune in prize money.”
But there was no prize money, thought Lord Bohun. He had to get away and think. He refused the offer of tea, which had just been brought in, rudely and abruptly, and strode straight out without saying good-bye.
Once more he stopped his carriage on the road while he thought furiously. They were man and wife—but pretending not to be because they actually had no money. So they had hit on a plan. Fanny would marry the rich Lord Bohun and Deveney the rich Miss Woodward, and, provided they told no one about their marriage, they might get away with bigamy. Damn them!
Then his eyes gleamed with a hellish light. He wanted Fanny. He had to admit to himself, he craved her. Now he had her where he wanted her. It was a pity Deveney had had her first. But no longer would he need to treat her like spun glass, and if she refused his advances, ah, then, all he had to do was threaten to betray her!
And yet, when he set eyes on her again, he found it almost impossible to believe she was cheating him. She looked so virginal, so glowing and adoring. He felt a wave of admiration for her. Few women could have played the role of innocent virgin so well. And he had only held her hand!
He was at a dance held on the lawns of Lord Anstey’s Kensington mansion. Huge marquees had been erected, one for dancing, one for refreshments, and another for cards. Little colored lanterns had been slung through the trees and a full moon was riding high above. The weather had turned warm again, and the air was sweeter and fresher than that of London, perfumed as it was by the flowers and plants from the nearby nurseries that supplied produce to Covent Garden Market.
Fanny was wearing a delicate pink gown of filmy silk and had her glossy curls bound by a gold fillet, on loan from Miss Grimes. Sir Charles, he noted grimly, was still paying court to Miss Woodward but not looking over-happy about it. Perhaps, thought Lord Bohun cynically, that conscience of his was bothering him at last.
He entertained Fanny and Miss Grimes with several long and fictitious tales about the work he was doing on his estates, then courteously held out his arm and asked Fanny to promenade with him.
“I still can’t like him,” said Miss Grimes to Tommy, who had just come up to join her.
“Oh, forget Deveney and Fanny,” said Tommy crossly. “We spend too much time worrying about them and do not have enough time for ourselves. Let us go for a walk.”
She smiled up at him, then rose and looped her skirt over her arm and went out of the marquee with him and into the moon-washed gardens.
He held her arm in a comfortable grip. “Not much fun being a soldier’s wife,” said Tommy.
“Ah,” said Miss Grimes. “You are thinking of Fanny.”
Here it comes, thought Tommy desperately. I can’t go on like this. It’s now or never. Into battle, ‘cry God for Harry, England, and St. George.’ I have faced the French tiraillers with less fear than I feel at this moment.
“No,” he said slowly and carefully. “I was thinking of you. I was thinking of us.”
“But, Captain Tommy, you cannot mean … Oh. I did not hear you right.”
“I am a poor soldier. I want to marry you. But I have nothing to offer you but my heart.”
“Oh, Tommy, that is all I need.”
He crushed her to him and kissed her slowly and tenderly on the lips.
“Now,” he said softly when he finally freed his lips from hers, “will you marry me?” “Yes.
”
“Oh, dearest!”
“And I will buy you out, as soon as possible, so you need never go back to that awful war again.”
He looked sadly down at her. “It is not so easy. I have a duty to do. The war cannot last forever. Will you wait for me?”
“No,” said Miss Grimes. “We will be married by special license and I will go with you.” She put a hand over his lips to silence his protest.
“But what of Charles? What of Fanny?”
“It is time this nonsense was over and they solved their own problems,” said Miss Grimes.
“True. May I kiss you again?”
“As much as you want!”
Fanny walked under the moon with Lord Bohun. She felt she had never been so happy. For the moment, she had almost forgotten she was married. When they had walked away from the other guests and toward a part of the gardens shadowed by a huge yew hedge, Lord Bohun stopped and Fanny stopped, too, and looked up at him questioningly.
“This is the first time we have really been alone,” he said softly. He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.
“We will soon have all our life together.” Fanny smiled up at him in the darkness. He seized her and kissed her full on the mouth, Fanny’s first real kiss.
And she did not like it at all. He was crushing her against him. He was kissing her so hard that she could feel her lips pressed back against her teeth. He smelled of brandy and cigars and sweat. He was mauling her mouth and his breathing was harsh and ragged.
With a great effort, she pulled free and said, with a nervous laugh, “We are behaving disgracefully. What would Miss Grimes say?”
“A pox on Miss Grimes,” he growled. “Come here!”
“I think it is not … it is not the … thing. Not now. We are not married.”
“No, we are not married,” he said.
But she was now too frightened and upset to hear him. “I promised a dance to Charles,” she said, and turning, she fled from him.
He stood there, smiling. Let her play her pretty pretend-virginal games. He would soon have her—and there was nothing she could do about it.
Fanny saw Sir Charles walking with Miss Woodward. Miss Woodward was flirting very hard, eyes and fan going at a great rate, when Fanny came hurtling up.
“Oh, Charles,” she said breathlessly, “we have a dance, I think.”
Miss Woodward looked furious, and Charles, amused. “Why so we have. We will walk back to the ballroom with Miss Woodward, where I may turn her over to one of her clamoring suitors.” He offered Fanny one arm and Miss Woodward the other. He could suddenly sense Fanny’s distress and wondered savagely what Bohun had been up to.
When Miss Woodward had been taken up by a partner, Sir Charles led Fanny onto the floor. It was a rowdy country dance, a lot of the guests having drunk too much and feeling that alfresco dancing allowed them to let down their hair more than they would have done in a formal ballroom. When they came together in the figure of the dance, Sir Charles noticed how Fanny’s eyes roamed nervously about the marquee.
He decided he would find out what was ailing her when they promenaded after the dance. But no sooner had the music stopped than Miss Woodward came up to them, accompanied by her mother, and so he had no opportunity to talk privately to Fanny. But he watched her for the rest of the evening, noticed that when Bohun claimed her for the waltz how she blushed miserably and hung almost limply in his arms, stumbling over the steps from time to time while Bohun looked down at her with a glittering air of triumph.
By the time they all climbed into the carriage to go home, Sir Charles was very worried indeed about Fanny. But Miss Grimes and Tommy announced their engagement and looked so blissfully happy that the journey home had to be taken up in congratulations and exclamations—and all Tommy and Miss Grimes wanted to talk about, over and over again, was how much in love they were and how neither of them had thought they had had any hope of attracting the affections of the other. So no future for Fanny, thought Sir Charles bleakly. Aunt Martha will no longer need a companion.
Fanny clutched the side of the carriage, her mind in a turmoil. What was it Mrs. Friendly had said? That one got babies by kissing and cuddling! What if she were pregnant? All the elation that had coursed through her body every time she thought of Lord Bohun had fled. She had been in love with the painted man, the man in the portrait, and now reality had hit her like a hammer blow. She could appeal to Charles to take her away, but what of his love for Miss Woodward? Why should she destroy his hopes of happiness?
Back in Hanover Square, champagne was produced and the happy couple toasted. At last Fanny could not bear it any longer; she excused herself and went off to her room.
After some time, Sir Charles, too, said good night. He went to his room and tore off his cravat and coat and kicked off his shoes. Perhaps Fanny was not yet asleep. He must find out why she was so worried.
He opened the door of her room and walked in. She was sitting on the floor in a lacy nightdress and frilly wrapper, her bare feet stuck out in front of her, her head bent. She looked like a discarded doll.
He sat down beside her and put an arm about her shoulders—and she rested her head against him with a little sigh. He gave her a gentle shake. “Out with it, Fanny. You’ve been looking worried to death ever since you went for that walk in the gardens with Bohun.”
Fanny gave a ragged little sigh. “I think I am with child, Charles.”
He was too shocked to yell or remonstrate. “How can you be?” he asked.
“Lord Bohun kissed me, kissed me very hard.”
“And?” He forced himself to wait patiently for the inevitable dreadful revelations.
“And he hugged me, like a—like a bear.”
“And what else?”
“I ran away.”
“Fanny,” he said in a wondering voice, “there must have been something else.” “Isn’t that enough?”
“No, my dear, not for babies.”
An anguished wail: “But Mrs. Friendly, our cook at Delfton Hall, she said that one got babies by kissing and cuddling!”
“Fanny!” He began to laugh, the relief was so great. “You silly nincompoop! You have to do a lot more than that to get babies.”
She looked up at him. “What, Charles?”
“I am sure Bohun will show you after you are married.”
“I would rather know now.”
“You had better get a lady to tell you. Miss Grimes.”
“You tell me!”
Still holding her, he bent his head and talked softly and earnestly, while Fanny looked at him, wide-eyed.
“Just like dogs in the street and beasts in the field,” she said at last. “How … inelegant!”
“Oh, Fanny, Fanny … What a fright you gave me. What’s in a kiss?”
“I didn’t like it much,” said Fanny, “but you see I have nothing to compare it with. Would you kiss me, Charles?”
“I have kissed you, my sweeting.”
“But just on the cheek. Kiss me on the mouth, here!” She pointed to her lips.
“Fanny, if the right man kisses you, there will be no question about whether you like it or not. Never say you have fallen out of love with Bohun after promising to marry him!”
But Fanny stubbornly refused to even contemplate such an idea. She had held on to that dream for so long. Certainly it had faded during the Kensington party, but that was because she had been so afraid of becoming pregnant. She felt almost light-headed with relief.
“Oh, give me a kiss, Charles,” she said gaily. “You have taken such a weight off my mind.”
He sighed. “You are nothing more than a little schoolgirl, Fanny. Very well.”
He tilted her chin up and kissed her gently on the mouth. A sudden wave of sheer, unadulterated lust swept over him. Those trusting lips were so soft and sweet. But one small, cold, disciplined part of his brain made him withdraw.
He cursed himself as he saw the dawning horror in Fanny’
s large eyes. “I am sorry,” he said quickly. He got to his feet. “It is a long time since I had a woman.”
He strode out.
Fanny sat on the floor where he had left her, her arms wound tightly about her body. That kiss had been wonderful, magical, beautiful. Like coming home. The horror in her eyes had been caused by the sudden realization that Bohun had been a fantasy and that she was already married to the man she loved. And he wanted only Miss Woodward.
A tear rolled down her small nose and plopped into her lap. Well, he could have his precious Miss Woodward. For her part, she would tell Lord Bohun she had changed her mind. Then she would flirt and appear happy and carefree until Charles was settled. She owed him that.
Chapter 8
DURING THE FOLLOWING DAYS, Lord Bohun wondered if he was ever going to have a chance to have a private conversation with Fanny. And how could he blackmail her into seduction if he could not see her alone?
The weather had changed to steady rain, canceling picnics and other alfresco events where he might have had a chance to lead her away from the crowd. He had tried to talk to her during a musicale and had been shushed violently. His vanity was so great that it did not occur to him that Fanny herself was making sure they were never alone.
But by the end of the week, blue skies stretched out somewhere far above the eternal smoky haze of London—and he was to escort Fanny to the Derings’ barge on the River Thames, where the Derings and guests were to sail to Hampton Court. He called on Lady Dering a day before the outing and suggested to her that her guests would be sure to want to leave the boat at Hampton Court and admire the maze.
Sir Charles meanwhile was intent on playing his role of Miss Woodward’s courtier so that Fanny should feel free to go ahead and marry Bohun if she wished, although he was still sure that she would soon find out what sort of man he was. Sir Charles had put the memory of that kiss firmly out of his mind. He had been overset; he had imagined his violent reaction to the touch of her mouth; all much better forgotten.
Miss Grimes had been made selfish by love. The only person who moved in her orbit was Captain Tommy, and if she thought at all about Fanny and Sir Charles it was with a sort of dismissive impatience. Let them get on with their own problems.