by Anne Gracie
At Ashendon’s skeptical snort, he added, “Doubt my veracity? Admiral Sir Thomas Byam Martin—Comptroller of the Navy—will vouch for me.”
“That’s as may be, but what—” Ashendon began.
“Am a witness.”
“Witness?” snapped Lady Salter. “This is a private family matter. We don’t need any more witnesses.” She shook her cane at the listening wedding guests. “We have far too many of the dratted things as it is. Now, be off with you.”
“Witness to the bride’s wedding,” Ollie said sweetly. “The original one. I was Thomas’s best man.”
Ollie was enjoying this, Thomas could see. He liked a bit of drama, enjoyed stirring things up. But Thomas wasn’t worried about proving his claim. He knew he was married to Rose.
It was Rose he wasn’t sure of, her reaction—or rather, her lack of reaction. He could feel her watching him when she thought he wasn’t looking, but she made no move to leave her relatives and come forward and stand with him. The Rose he knew, the Rose he’d married, hadn’t been backward in coming forward.
Then again, people changed. Who knew it better than he?
“Where and when did this wedding take place?” he heard the bishop ask.
Thomas said to Ashendon, “You really didn’t know about it?”
“No. And if my sister were truly married, why would she hide it from her family?”
Why indeed? Ashendon seemed sincere. But why would Rose have kept it a secret? The whole point of the marriage had been to secure her position.
It had seemed so right at the time. In the four years since, he’d never had reason to doubt that their marriage, hasty as it was, had been for the best. He’d thought it the best thing he’d ever done.
So why had she said nothing to any of her family? And why didn’t she come to him now, stand with him in front of them all and explain that yes, they were married?
He glanced at her and caught her watching him. Their eyes met, clung, and then she dropped her gaze and moved back in her seat, out of sight. Failing to acknowledge him.
A familiar cold bitterness stole over him. Et tu, Rose?
The last four years should have prepared him for this. And yet it hadn’t.
He’d come running in, full of expectation, expecting to surprise her, yes, but in a good way. Not this blank-faced silence.
“Genuine marriage all right,” Ollie said. “Took place four years ago, small village church outside of Bath, St. Thomas’s church—hard to forget that name, don’t you think? Ceremony was conducted by . . .” He frowned and clicked his fingers. “Purdy or Proudy, some name like that. Old fellow. White hair, what he had of it. Nature’s tonsure,” he added, twirling his finger around the crown of his head.
“Bath?” Rose’s brother turned to the bishop, a question in his eyes.
The bishop pursed his lips and nodded. “Cecil Purdue was the vicar of St. Thomas’s in that diocese, but he’s dead. Passed away last year.”
“Purdue, that’s the fellow,” Ollie agreed. “Dead, eh? Not surprised. Getting on for ancient when we met him. But the wedding’s recorded in the church register, all right and tight, eh, Thomas? Thomas?” He elbowed his friend in the ribs.
Thomas dragged his thoughts back into the present. “Yes. Rose has—had—a copy of her marriage lines.” He’d ensured that, in case she needed to prove she was married. Instead she’d apparently never even mentioned it. Had she burned the precious document as well?
“Arrant nonsense!” Lady Salter interjected. “Four years ago, Rose was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl. She couldn’t possibly have married without her father’s permission—and that I’m certain he would not have given!” She directed a scathing glance at Thomas and his witness.
“Such a marriage might not be legal,” the bishop offered. “If the girl was underage, if she had no parental permission . . .”
“Rose?” Ashendon turned to his sister. “You haven’t said a word. Is there any truth in this story?”
Thomas folded his arms and waited. What would he do if she denied it? The possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. But then, nothing about this day had gone remotely to plan.
Finally, Rose stood, ashen-faced and with a troubled expression. She opened her mouth to speak, then pressed her lips together and nodded. She looked at Thomas for a brief moment, then her gaze dropped. An older woman put an arm around Rose and drew her back out of sight.
A cold fist clenched in Thomas’s chest. It was as he thought. She was ashamed of marrying him. Regretted it. Wanted to deny it, but had been trapped into admitting it. It explained why she couldn’t look at him, why she didn’t speak.
Thomas’s hands curled into fists. All these years, dreaming of Rose, dreaming of getting back to Rose, and now . . . this.
She hadn’t told anyone about him. Not even her family.
She’d been about to marry a duke.
Cold, familiar anger coalesced in his belly. During the last four years there had been one attempt after another to obliterate him. But he had survived. He was not so easily destroyed, not so easily set aside. He would show them all.
But oh, Rose. It hurt. It shouldn’t, but it did.
“It’s a damnable blasted mess.” Ashendon glared at the twittering congregation, so avid to hear every juicy detail, watching as if it were a play put on for their entertainment. Thomas would happily turn a hose full of cold seawater on the lot of them.
“Damned gossipmongering vultures,” Ashendon continued. “Aunt Agatha’s right. This is private family business. We’ll sort it out at Ashendon House.”
He turned toward the audience and raised his voice. “My apologies, ladies and gentlemen. As the duke said, the wedding has been canceled. Thank you for your attendance. The wedding breakfast is canceled. Your gifts will, of course, be returned.”
He gave a nod to the small knot of females surrounding Rose. They immediately rose and hustled Rose out of the church. At the church door Rose paused, turned, gave Thomas one long, unreadable look, then disappeared into the daylight.
Once the bride and her female relatives had left, under Ashendon’s gimlet gaze the remaining guests reluctantly dissipated, talking nineteen to the dozen in hushed, excited voices of the scandal they’d witnessed. The wedding of the season, in absolute, delicious ruins. It would be all over the ton by teatime.
Chapter Two
How hard it is in some cases to be believed!
And how impossible in others!
—JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
“You stupid, stupid, stupid gel!” Aunt Agatha began her rant the moment the door closed behind the Rutherford ladies in the large drawing room at Ashendon House. “A complete waste of a duke! All my efforts to arrange a splendid match for you—weeks of negotiation—down the drain. All eyes upon us, and then, the wedding of the season turned into a scene from a lowbrow farce!”
Rose sat silent on the sofa. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Aunt Agatha’s fury pelted against her like hail against a window, registering, but not touching.
Her brain had room for only one thought: Thomas was alive. And she hadn’t recognized him.
How could she not have known him when he’d turned up at the church? She’d been so certain it was some dreadfully cruel joke. But how could it be, when nobody knew about her marriage?
No matter how wild his hair or thick his beard, no matter what he was wearing, she ought to have recognized him. Oh, there’d been that moment of hesitation, that flicker of doubt, but he’d been in her thoughts just moments before, and she’d convinced herself that was the reason.
A wife should know her own husband. Instead she’d effectively rejected him. Guilt flayed her.
Aunt Agatha continued, “If there was any irregularity in your marital status, why did you not inform us before it came to such a disgraceful—and
public—scene!”
“Oh, be quiet, Aggie,” Aunt Dottie told her sister. “Can’t you see the gel’s had a terrible shock?”
“She’s not the only one, Dorothea! She’s brought scandal on us all with her thoughtlessness! We’ll be a laughingstock! I won’t be able to hold my head up in public for, for days!”
“Oh, poor you,” George muttered. Aunt Agatha gave her a baleful glare.
George had brought her dog in with her, Finn, the gangly Irish wolfhound. He sat with his head on her knee. Rose watched absently as George scratched him gently behind the ears.
“How do you feel, Rose, dear?” Emm asked, leaning forward. “You’re looking very pale.”
Rose couldn’t answer. She didn’t know how she felt. Thomas was alive. All these years thinking he was dead, and now . . .
She should be rejoicing—and she was. Or she would be, soon. When he arrived. When she could see him, touch him, speak to him in private. Know him again. Surely then, it would all come flooding back, the way it had been, four years ago.
And yet . . .
He’d changed so much.
He was so thin. She’d felt his ribs clearly when he’d held her against him. Thomas—her Thomas, the one she remembered—had always been lean, but in a slender, boyish kind of way. This Thomas looked somehow . . . gaunt, as if all flesh and softness had been burned out of him. And yet he also seemed bigger, tougher, harder. She thought of those hard, ropy muscles visible through the ragged shirt, the broadness of his chest and shoulders.
He’d aged too, much more, it seemed, than four years. And there were lines around his eyes, and shadows beneath them, as if he wasn’t sleeping. She’d always loved his eyes—such an unusual silvery blue, like snippets of a summer sky at twilight. Their color hadn’t changed, of course, but today it had been like looking into burning ice. There was a hardness there she didn’t recognize . . .
That look he’d given her as she’d left the church.
When she was a little girl, before she and Lily had been sent away to school, an old lady in the village had died, and her cat, a small, sleek black-and-white tomcat had run off, probably because nobody had remembered to feed the poor little thing.
Rose had come across it in the woods several years later. She knew it was the same cat—the unique black-and-white markings were unmistakable. It was thin, with its ribs sticking out, yet it was bigger—rangy and ragged-looking. She’d called to it, but it no longer trusted people. It had hissed at her and vanished.
Something about Thomas reminded her of that cat.
Which was ridiculous. People didn’t go feral. He was upset, maybe; angry at seeing her about to marry another man.
She needed to explain. She swallowed. It wasn’t going to be easy.
Aunt Agatha raged on. “As for Ashendon, what on earth did he think he was doing, allowing that scarecrow to disrupt our wedding? His father would be turning in his grave. He would have known what to do.”
“What could Cal do?” George objected. “It’s not his fault that man turned up.”
“If he’d done as I told him and thrown the wretched beggar back into the gutter—”
“It isn’t as simple as that,” Emm said. “It’s perfectly clear that there was a wedding some years ago, but that Rose thought she was free to marry again. She has a lot of explaining to do, but not right now. She’s in no state to explain anything yet. Let us wait until Cal and Ned arrive with Mr. Beresford and perhaps things will become clearer then—”
Aunt Agatha ignored her. “You should have denied him from the start, Rose. Swooning away like the veriest weakling only drew attention to—”
“Oooh, but the way he caught her and swept her into his arms when she fainted. And that burning, possessive look he gave her. Soooo romantic.” Aunt Dottie heaved a gusty sigh.
“Dorothea!” her older sister snapped. “Don’t encourage her. The gel has behaved disgracefully! To make such an appalling mésalliance behind everyone’s back! If her father had found out he would have had the fellow horsewhipped and the wretched affair annulled! Rose should be a duchess by now, and instead she’s, she’s—”
“Oh, stop fussing over what can’t be helped, Aggie,” Aunt Dottie said.
“Can’t be helped? Can’t be helped? What nonsense, of course it can be helped!”
The auntly squabbles washed over Rose. Her hands, still clad in those absurd lace gloves, were shaking, and not with cold. Her mind was swirling with questions, impossible-to-answer questions.
Oh, Thomas. What was she going to do? What would she say to him? She had no idea.
The door opened and she tensed, thinking Thomas had arrived, but it was only two footmen bearing laden trays. “Ah, the refreshments at last.” Emm seized on the distraction thankfully. “Lily, would you pour the tea, please? There’s nothing like a nice cup of tea to settle the nerves, and we can all do with that. And perhaps we can refrain from squa— from any further discussion of Rose’s situation for the moment. George, would you pass your aunt those cream cakes—and please don’t feed them to the—oh, really, must you encourage that animal?”
“I dropped it by accident,” George claimed. Finn, having devoured a little cake in one swift gulp, gazed mournfully at the spread, doing his usual impersonation of a dog who’d Never Been Fed.
Rose’s tension eased a little as the flow of questions—questions for which she had no answer—was diverted into a diatribe from Aunt Agatha on why Animals—especially Large Dogs—had No Place in a Gentlewoman’s drawing room.
George listened with a bland expression and surreptitiously fed a biscuit to Finn. She glanced at Rose and winked.
Tea was poured and cakes, biscuits and cucumber sandwiches were handed around. Rose felt ill.
Thomas was alive. Where had he been all these years? What had happened?
Aunt Agatha waved away the cakes. “The marriage must be annulled, of course.”
“Now, Aggie, didn’t you hear Emm? Let’s give Rose a little time to collect her thoughts before we decide what is to be done,” Aunt Dottie said. “Rose, dear, you just drink your tea and eat one of these delicious-looking cakes, or perhaps a nice little sandwich—yes, I know you don’t want anything, but trust me, you’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”
“And when you’ve finished your tea, you can explain how this appalling situation came to be,” Aunt Agatha said. “The main question is whether we can convince the duke to forgive the insult and take Rose back. The poor man must be devastated.”
George picked up a sandwich. “Devastated? He barely seemed mildly put out.”
“Quite right. A true gentleman doesn’t show his feelings.” Aunt Agatha sipped her tea.
Aunt Dottie put a worried hand on Rose’s arm. “You weren’t in love with the duke, were you, my dear?”
Rose blinked, pulled back from the turmoil of her thoughts. “What? Oh. No.”
“As it should be,” Aunt Agatha said crisply. “People of our order don’t marry for love.”
“Piffle.” Aunt Dottie selected a small cake bulging with cream.
Her sister turned to her in exasperation. “You never did have the least grasp of reality, Dorothea. It’s no wonder you never married. The chances you wasted—a duke, that marquess, several earls—”
“I’m perfectly happy with the choice I made.”
“But you chose none of them.”
“No.” Aunt Dottie bit into her cream cake with a blissful expression.
Aunt Agatha rolled her eyes. “And look at you now, a pathetic old spinster!”
“That’s a horrid thing to say!” Lily put a comforting arm around Aunt Dottie’s waist.
Aunt Dottie chuckled. “Oh, don’t mind Aggie, my love. She always gets crabby when her plans go awry. I’m perfectly happy with my life. I have no regrets, and I don’t feel the least
bit pathetic. Delicious cakes, Emm, dear. My compliments to your cook.” She reached for another.
“There’s nothing pathetic about being a spinster,” George said. “That’s what I plan to be—a happy spinster, unencumbered by a bossy husband. Mistress of my own fate. And with complete control over my own money.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Georgiana!” Aunt Agatha snapped. “It is your duty—”
Emm set her teacup down with a clatter. “Rose, my dear, I’m sure you’ll wish to change out of that dress. Come, let us go upstairs.” She rose, a little awkwardly because of her bulk, and held out her hand. “No, Lily,” she added, as Lily moved to accompany them. “Stay here with George, please, and entertain your aunts.”
Rose felt an unworthy surge of relief. It was cowardly, she knew, but she wasn’t yet ready to face Lily. Not alone. So much to explain, and no idea how to begin.
And that was just Lily. What about Thomas? What was she going to say to him?
Emm led her to the stairs. “Dear Dottie. You realize she’s drawing your Aunt Agatha’s fire deliberately?”
Rose smiled. George was too. “I know. Aunt Dottie is a darling.”
Emm kissed her cheek. “She loves you, as do we all—even Aunt Agatha, though she’d never admit to such vulgar emotion. Now run along upstairs, wash your face—have a bath if you like—and change out of that dress. Come down when you’re ready.”
Rose gave her sister-in-law a rueful look. “And what if I’m never ready? Oh, Emm, what am I going to do?”
Emm hugged her gently. “I can’t tell you that, my dear. You must look into your own heart, and decide for yourself what is right. Whatever you want, your brother and I will support you.”
“But what if I don’t know?” And oh, wasn’t that a disloyal thing to say?
“Just take it one day at a time. There’s no reason to rush into any decision—Mr. Beresford has been gone for four years, after all. A few more days or even weeks won’t make any difference, will it?”