The Bride Takes a Groom

by Lisa Berne

  “How very droll,” Katherine answered, adding a lilting note into her own voice, pretending to be amused, and suppressing the thought, What an ass.

  The Hedleys’ ball. Herself in a gown of fine, soft violet silk. With more partners for the dances than she could possibly accept. Here she was, moving through the intricate steps of the quadrille with Mr. Hedley himself, one of the ton’s leading lights, a close friend of the King, and, as he himself had earlier confessed, an ardent devotee of paleontology.

  He said, as the dance brought them together again, “You’ve heard, perhaps, that a complete skull of some lizard-like creature was found last year in Lyme Regis by a twelve-year-old girl? Thought to be thousands of years old. Most impressive. William Bullock’s displaying it on Picadilly Street and refuses to sell it.”

  Under other circumstances, Katherine would have been interested. An ancient lizard skull; the remarkable little girl who had discovered it. But tonight she was pretending to be Countess Lieven, that incredibly haughty patroness of Almack’s, and so she only gave a single nod of her head and looked away.

  And saw that Hugo was dancing with the beautiful Mrs. Waring, who wore a daringly low-cut dress of diaphanous yellow silk.

  It was not, somehow, a particularly agreeable sight.

  A strange, twisty feeling stirred within her.

  It took her a few moments to realize that it was jealousy.

  “How superbly you dance, Captain Penhallow,” said Mrs. Waring. “Particularly for such a . . . such a large man.” In her voice was insinuation. An invitation too, perhaps, confirmed when she added, “We must get to know each other better. I’m sure my husband would love nothing more himself, but unfortunately he’s in Sussex for the Season, there’s some problem with his cattle. The blackleg disease, or some other nasty thing. Cattle-breeding is positively a mania with my dear Samuel. He’s very . . . passionate about it.” Mrs. Waring smiled up into his face. “I’m at home on Thursday afternoon. All alone, I daresay.”

  Hugo felt himself—felt his body—respond. What man wouldn’t? Mrs. Waring was an attractive woman. Willing. Eager.

  He glanced across the gleaming hardwood floor. There was Katherine, chin lifted proudly, dancing with Laurence Hedley as though she hadn’t a care in the world. It seemed difficult—impossible—to remember the Katherine who lay in her bed at that inn, exhausted and ill, stretching out a hand to be clasped, or the Katherine who had, at Surmont Hall, given herself to him with such sweet abandon.

  The black, sorrowful sough threatened once more. A siren’s song now tempted.

  Quite a few men of the beau monde, in his position, would have accepted Mrs. Waring’s invitation without a second thought. Here again, if he were a different sort of person, if he were to change himself into another kind of man, with a more loosely held set of morals, he would say yes. And go to her house on Thursday. And, very probably, as often as he liked. No one need ever know . . .

  Hugo looked down again at Mrs. Waring.

  “Thank you,” he said, “but I’ve another engagement that afternoon.”

  And luckily, it was true. Cousin Judith was considering the purchase of a pair of carriage horses, matched bays, and wanted to consult with him about it. So at least—some sort of small consolation—he didn’t have to lie.

  Chapter 12

  28 May 1812

  Ma chère Katherine,

  According to the newspapers, the Court announcements, and the reports of our wide and illustrious acquaintance here in Bath (so extraordinarily well informed they are), you and le plus cher Hugo have been in London nearly two months—and in the Penhallow townhouse, no less! Félicitations à vous! Naturally I should have liked to hear from you directly but I daresay you are très occupée with countless engagements. We are told that you’re seen everywhere under the aegis of the Duke and Duchess of Egremont—at Almack’s—at Carlton House—at the most exclusive dinner-parties, assemblies, breakfasts, and balls. Bien joué!

  Your father and I are, naturellement, extremely busy ourselves, as we receive more invitations than we could possibly accept. We too are seen everywhere, at the assemblies, concerts, lectures, fashionable excursions, et comme ça. I declare I am all awhirl. And next year, pour être sûr, London!

  I remain, etc.,

  Mother

  P.S. Your father wishes me to inform you that last week he received a cheque for 4,300 pounds from the Batavia–Jakarta Joint Stock company—its annual dividend for a 500-pound investment. He thinks you and cher Hugo ought to invest also, before the initial-sum requirement is raised.

  Slowly Katherine put down Mother’s letter, on top of an untidy sheaf of other correspondence, circulars, and a great many invitations. She pulled open a drawer of the dressing-table at which she sat, taking from it a box from Fessler’s Confectionaries that Ellery had just brought earlier this afternoon. She opened it; it was filled with rich, thick chocolate conserves. She ate one. It was delicious.

  Then she ate another one, her gaze sweeping around her bedchamber as to her came again that vague, niggling sensation of having lost something—forgotten something.

  She ate another conserve.

  Her gaze fell on a stack of books on a small table next to her bed. They were new; she’d purchased dozens and dozens of them, and there were similar stacks all around the room, novels, poetry, travelogues, plays, and more, each and every one lovingly added to its own growing tower. How enticing they looked. But, ironically, she’d had no time to read; virtually all her waking hours were devoted to the demands of her new life, her new self. Being dressed; her hair being done, the friseur coming and going. Changing this gown for that one, and changing that for the next one: you couldn’t wear the dress you wore on morning-calls when you went out for a carriage ride, and of course you had to wear something else for a dinner-party or a ball, and everything required different shoes, different stockings, different wraps, different hats.

  A sigh escaped her, and she took up from her correspondence pile a large, gold-edged card of invitation. Tonight she and Hugo were to dine with a select party of guests at Lord and Lady DeWitt’s, and attend the ball there that was to follow. Everyone said it was going to be the biggest, most important event of the Season; Lady DeWitt herself had come to call, bringing the invitation and expressing her hope that the Penhallows would deign to come.

  Katherine ate two more conserves, and put the box back in the drawer. Who, she wondered, was she going to pretend to be tonight? At those parties and balls, breakfasts and picnics, about which Mother had written so approvingly, she had already tried being Queen Charlotte (calm, civil, a little distant), Esther from the Bible (supremely tactful and courageous), Lady Caroline Lamb (high-spirited and vivacious), Portia in The Merchant of Venice (brilliant and high-minded), she had even tried to be the Prince Regent (good-natured, courteous, full of expansive bonhomie). Occasionally, dangerously, she had let the mask slip—in a bookshop, wandering through an art gallery, a quiet moment of conversation here and there—but tonight, she told herself, she was going to hold firm.

  Who would she be?

  The DeWitts’ dinner-party. A massive table, crowded with intricate centerpieces of spun sugar, tall dripping candles, flowers in Venetian blown-glass vases, dozens of glasses, silver flatware, rich and heavy in the hand. Another lavish meal. Elaborate courses almost beyond counting; you could eat until your stomach swelled, drink wine until you quite literally sloshed. Hugo looked at his gold-rimmed plate, and found himself wishing, with a startling intensity, for something to do. Something real. A sluice to fix, a jammed musket to repair, a ship’s rigging to climb; he’d almost be willing to jump off a roof into a rain barrel.

  “Oh, Captain Penhallow,” said the lady to his left, smiling and dimpling, the feathers in her headdress fluttering wildly, “when I realized I was to sit next to you—a Penhallow!—I nearly went into palpitations! Such a privilege! I had no idea you’d be so tall! So regal! Has anyone ever told you that you look just like a G
reek god?”

  “Yes,” Hugo said baldly, then instantly regretted it. Luckily the lady to his left didn’t even seem to notice, her eyes were roving over him with a kind of greedy awe that made him want to either laugh, or fling over the entire table with a roar. A damned good clatter it would make, too.

  Katherine was standing in the DeWitts’ magnificent ballroom, conscious that she was looking her best in an exquisite gown of deep forest-green, around her neck and wrists tasteful, elegant chains of sparkling emeralds. She stood as part of a large and jovial crowd, talking and laughing, laughing and talking. How happy she was, she told herself, how very, very happy—extremely happy—no one in the entire history of the world had ever been happier than she—

  She was jostled, then, by someone passing by, and reflexively she turned to see a young woman all in white who said:

  “I do beg your pardon, it’s such a squeeze,” and then, “Why—Katherine! Katherine Brooke!”

  The voice was familiar, and with a shock that seemed to rattle her bones Katherine recognized at once the Honorable Lydia St. John, in whose bed at the Basingstoke Select Academy for Young Ladies, she had, on that fatal day, placed a large handful of wiggling, dirt-incrusted worms, instigating a scene—and a punishment—of epic proportions. Lydia St. John, so popular and self-assured, who in a soft sweet voice continually teased her about her grandfather the miner; who, one day, took her handkerchief and rubbed it on Katherine’s cheek, and said so that everyone in the room could hear, Oh dear, Miss Brooke, you’ve got coal dust on your cheek. But I’m afraid, dear Miss Brooke, it will never come clean. And that was when, in a scarlet haze of fury, Katherine had stalked into the garden and begun digging her fingers into damp earth, in a single-minded quest for revenge.

  Well, well, well.

  Putting worms in someone’s bed was one thing, but this . . .

  This was a gift laid at her feet.

  A singular moment in which it all came together; a moment when she, at last, need no longer feel inferior to the girl who had tormented her, year after year, whose sweet voice had made her, sometimes, sit in her room with her hands pressed over her ears in a futile attempt to drown out what Lydia had that day said.

  Katherine felt a smile curl her lips. She answered, “You are mistaken, Miss St. John. I am Mrs. Penhallow now.”

  “Mrs. Penhallow.” Lydia St. John stared, her eyes gone as round as buttons. “I—I didn’t know. I’ve been in the West Indies, you see, with my brother and his family. We’ve only just returned.”

  “The West Indies?” Katherine said, casually. “It’s very sunny there, I believe.”

  “Sunny? Yes. Very.”

  Katherine nodded. Within her was such giddy anticipation that she almost felt as if she were vibrating with it, as if, from above, mapping out the scene, she could see herself reaching with perfect nonchalance into her deep-green satin reticule, pulling from it a fine linen handkerchief which—in front of everybody—she gently, oh so gently, brushed against the smooth cheek of Lydia St. John, not quite the alabaster shade it had been three years ago, and Lydia blanching—and then she would turn her back on Lydia in a cut direct—and Lydia would melt away in shame and humiliation, as if she never was and never had been—

  It was, in fact, just the sort of thing a villainous character in a novel would do.

  Hurtful, and unkind.

  Was that really who she was? She, herself—not Ellena di Rosalba, or Lady Caroline Lamb or Queen Charlotte; not Hatshepsut, or Esther, or Thomas Cromwell, or Richard III, or Wu Zetian.

  Who was she?

  Her hand, Katherine noticed as if from afar, was sliding into her reticule. Even with gloves on she could feel how cool and smooth was the satin. There: there was her handkerchief, soft, delicate, on it, she knew, embroidered in silken thread the letters kp.

  She pulled it out.

  Looked at it as if never, ever in her life had she seen a handkerchief.

  Who was she?

  Was she really like a nasty character in a novel? A character about whom you’d be glad when bad things happened to her? And if so, what sort of sorry heroine would that be?

  Not a heroine at all.

  Katherine looked up and over at the Honorable Lydia St. John, abruptly aware of the lights and the music, the chatter and the laughter all around them. Too bright, too loud. She felt shaky—weak—desperate to get away, to go sit down somewhere quiet. Where she could think. Reflect. Breathe.

  But there was something she had to do first.

  So she put her handkerchief back into her reticule, and she said to Lydia St. John, “Sunny. Yes. How delightful. I do hope you had a nice stay there.”

  There. She had done it. She had been civil; polite. Not villainous. That was not who she was.

  She could go now.

  But a tall, beefy man, with a big ruddy face, had borne down upon them and taken Lydia’s upper arm in a firm grip, and was saying to her with a heartiness that somehow grated in Katherine’s ears:

  “Been holding out on me, hey? Didn’t know you were friendly with Mrs. Penhallow—the Mrs. Penhallow.”

  “Yes,” said Lydia, looking rather smaller all at once. “We were at school together. Mrs. Penhallow, may I introduce to you my brother, Denis St. John?”

  “An honor, ma’am,” said Denis St. John, looking very much as if he wanted to seize Katherine’s hand and press it hard, or—worse—kiss it. Katherine clenched her fingers on the silken strings of her reticule which, perhaps, deterred him, but still he went on, undaunted:

  “Yes indeed, quite the honor to meet you! Well! Isn’t this cozy, you knowing little Lydia here! Speaking of honor, you know I’m an ‘honorable,’ of course. My father’s a baron, not that that’s anything to a Penhallow, naturally, but still, it’s not nothing! Been in Jamaica, you know, overseeing the family plantation. Brought Lydia along—a planter friend of mine—had expected—well, that’s neither here nor there. Daresay the two of you will be wanting to renew your friendship, hey? Go for drives in Hyde Park, strolls through Richmond, that sort of thing? Let the world know and all that.” He gave Lydia’s arm a squeeze, and she opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted yet again when the Earl of Westenbury came to Katherine’s side, reminded her that she was promised to him for the country-dance which had begun to form, and she was swept away, leaving the St. Johns behind.

  She and the Earl had nearly joined the set, and Katherine saw Hugo escorting his partner, Lady de Courcey, onto the floor; her ladyship looked up at him, smiling, her arm intimately through his. Katherine’s heart gave a hard thump and she put her hand to her chest, as if to subdue a painful twisty ache. For a wild, rash moment she wanted to dart over there, shove pretty Lady de Courcey aside, and take her place in the dance with Hugo. But even if she really intended to do such a deranged thing, she didn’t know if she had the strength for it, as her legs still had that odd trembly feeling, the noise of the ballroom seemed almost to be hurting her ears. She paused and said—not as Shakespeare’s Portia, or Ellena di Rosalba, or Cardinal Wolsey, but as someone who ached for a moment of quiet—she said to the Earl:

  “My lord, would you excuse me? I’m afraid I’m a little tired and must sit down.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Penhallow,” said the Earl at once. “May I bring you some ratafia? Or lemonade?”

  “No,” she answered, trying to smile, “thank you, my lord, I’m just going to—if you’ll excuse me—”

  And she slipped away, to the open French doors, out onto the terrace. Oh, it was cooler here. Blessedly quieter. But there were still other people about. So she went down the shallow, broad steps onto a graveled path, went past the ornamental garden with its beautifully tended shrubs and large plashing fountain, then alongside the lengthy narrow kitchen-garden, and finally, her steps slowing, she came to the DeWitt stables. It was quiet, calm. Deserted. A horse nickered, another horse answered, and then there was blessed silence. Toward the end of the building was a wooden bench, and gratefully K
atherine sank down upon it, propped elbows in her lap, let her forehead sink onto open palms.

  Her mind was whirling with images, coming at her faster than she could process them.

  Hugo dancing with Lady de Courcey. Dancing with Mrs. Waring. And so many others, in other dances, at other balls. So many of them these past weeks in London. Attractive, charming women, looking up into Hugo’s face with an eager willingness. She, Katherine, had observed it, time and time again, as if watching a play from the very top tier, very far from the stage. As if it didn’t matter to her.

  She had looked, but she had not seen.

  Katherine repressed a groan, her forehead drooping heavily onto her palms.

  Our very eyes, said Shakespeare, are sometimes, like our judgments, blind.

  Yes, she had been blind. Willfully, stubbornly blind—

  “Oh, Philip,” came a woman’s voice from around the corner of the stable, followed by low breathy laugh, and Katherine, startled, lifted her head. She had been sure she was alone. The woman went on:

  “Do hurry up, my husband will notice I’m gone.”

  “It’s just this curst slip of yours getting in the way, Letitia.”

  “I’m Lucretia!”

  “Whatever you say, my dear. Ah—here we go—”

  “You’re tearing it!”

  “Must you caterwaul, Letitia? You spoil my concentration.”

  “It’s Lucretia!” The woman’s voice rose to a muffled shriek, then subsided into a gratified moan, and Katherine belatedly realized what was happening just around the corner. Rapidly she stood up and the bench gave a rather loud and piercing creak; she froze.

  “Philip, stop,” came the woman’s voice, urgent now. “Did you hear that? There’s someone near.”

  “So what? I don’t mind an audience.”

  “I do! Stop it.”

  “Very well. What a bore you are, Letitia. I wish I could remember why I took up with you in the first place.”