The Marriage Wager

by Ashford, Jane

  Colin took her hand, ready to slip the ring onto her finger at the bishop’s bidding. Was she making another dreadful mistake? Emma wondered suddenly.

  The last week had flown past in a whirl of preparations. There had been no time for calm, rational thought. But she had been prey to wild fluctuations of emotion. At one moment, she found Colin warm and beguiling; at other times, he seemed cool and distant, barely interested in what she was saying. He had the capacity to shut out everyone and everything, she had discovered. And at those times, the expression that shadowed his face was chilling.

  Emma’s gaze swept along the church pews. There was her father beaming in the first row, flanked by Robin, the young brother she scarcely knew. Some cousins of her mother’s, total strangers, sat behind them. On the other side of the church were Colin’s mother, her expression stiff; his sister Caroline, smiling beside her husband; his great-aunt Celia, benignly autocratic; and an assortment of other relatives. The only touch of gaiety among the onlookers was provided by the bright military uniforms in the back, where grins and friendly jostling were also visible.

  It was time for her to say the words—the final moment for changing her mind. She looked up at Colin. He met her questioning gaze steadily. His violet eyes showed nothing of his feelings, and Emma had a sudden intense wish to know what they were. But he simply looked at her, as the pause in the ceremony grew to an awkward length. Emma heard the onlookers begin to stir in the pews behind them. Her father harrumphed softly, like a bull elephant about to give way to panic. Then Colin raised one eyebrow. One corner of his mouth quirked up very slightly as he continued to meet her gaze. Despite his frequent melancholy, he was a man who laughed, Emma thought. That was a hopeful sign. It couldn’t be a dreadful mistake to marry a man who laughed. Taking a deep breath, she gave her promises. A collective sigh, conveying a variety of emotions, went through the congregation. Colin’s violet eyes showed a subtle twinkle, almost as if he understood what had gone through everyone’s mind, including Emma’s. She couldn’t help but smile up at him in response as the bishop pronounced them wed.

  The wedding luncheon provided by George Bellingham for the small group invited to witness the ceremony was lavish. He had wanted to ask many more people to attend, and it had taken the combined efforts of Emma and Colin’s aunt Celia to convince him that this was inappropriate. He consoled himself by procuring every delicacy available to serve his guests and by providing cases and cases of champagne.

  The military men greeted this bounty with loud enthusiasm, and at once appropriated several cases for their own use. As family members eyed them with disapproval, envy, indulgence, or amusement—depending on their temperaments—the men gathered in one corner of the room and began proposing toast after toast among themselves, downing a full glass of the fine wine with each. After a bit, a few of the young cousins from both sides joined them. Robin Bellingham, also welcomed into their revels, soon found his senses swimming as they emptied one bottle after another with increasing exuberance.

  The time came for Robin to give his own toast to the bride and groom and assembled company. As he wavered to his feet, he felt powerful and sophisticated and suave. Gesturing with his glass, he spoke, and was horrified to hear his voice slur over the words he had so carefully prepared. “I wish every happinessh to my shister and her hushband.” Flushing bright red, he sank back into his chair, only to miss the waiting seat and tumble to the floor, amid loud laughter from the soldiers around him and cries of, “He’s drunk as a wheelbarrow.”

  “Oh, dear,” Emma murmured, watching Robin stumble to his feet, aided by several soldiers who were hardly in better condition. “Oh, dear,” she repeated, as the whole group crashed to the floor together and lay there in a heap laughing and cursing.

  Colin laughed as well. Emma threw him a look. “Someone should take Robin in hand,” she said.

  “From the look of your father, he’ll be well raked over the coals.”

  Seeing her father’s thunderous scowl, she shook her head. “That’s a sure way to make it worse.”

  “He’s a young man finding his feet on the town,” Colin added. “Not much harm in it.”

  “You did the same, I suppose?”

  “No doubt I would have, if I hadn’t joined the army.”

  She acknowledged it with a nod. “This doesn’t worry me so much.” She watched Robin waver into his chair once more, a foolish grin on his face. “But the gambling…” She shivered a little. “He never came to see me, as he said he would,” she remarked.

  Colin merely sipped from his glass, still watching his friends. They looked far older than the boys they had been the first time they all drank together, he thought. And of course, there were many faces missing—far too many.

  “I wanted to explain to him the dangers of gaming,” Emma went on.

  Colin started to speak, but she foresaw his comment before he could make it. “He probably wouldn’t listen.”

  “Youngsters seem to find that difficult,” he agreed.

  “Perhaps you could speak to him,” she suggested. “You must know precisely how to influence young men, since you commanded so many of them in the war. I’m sure he would listen to you.”

  The muscles of Colin’s face had stiffened.

  “You would have every excuse to speak to him,” she added, “having become a member of his family. And your opinion must have greater weight than—”

  “I don’t see why,” interrupted Colin in a rather harsh voice.

  Emma turned to him in surprise.

  “He wouldn’t appreciate my interference,” he added abruptly.

  “But—”

  “In fact, I already mentioned the matter when I returned his notes of hand, and he clearly resented it very much indeed.”

  “Things are different now. You have become—”

  “The boy has a father, friends—a sister, for that matter. This is none of my affair.” His tone was forbidding.

  “It is everyone’s affair when young men are being ruined,” snapped Emma angrily. “And a matter of simple kindness to make some effort—”

  “I contracted to marry you, not your family,” he said sharply. “I’m sure Robin will get a bellyful of advice just from those in this room. I shan’t add to it.”

  His tone was so cutting that Emma was silenced. She sat straighter in her chair, her jaw clenched on further protests. Here were the limits of marriage as a rational bargain, she told herself. There were things she could expect, and others she could not count on. And if she stepped over those boundaries, Colin would make it very clear. It was not an experience she cared for in the least. In fact, she hated it, and she longed to tell him so in the strongest possible terms. But Emma had long ago had her fill of public scenes. Besides, she had agreed to the bargain, she reminded herself, controlling her anger with the skill of long practice. She had known quite clearly that this was no impulsive love match, and been thankful for it. She had wanted stability as much as Colin. But she would see that she remembered his limits in future, she vowed, because just now she felt like spitting.

  There were more toasts from the military group, followed by a long, rambling, slightly incomprehensible one from Lord Wrotham, which had Caroline tugging at his coattail to get him to sit down before he finally finished.

  Colin sat silent through all of this, his face somber and impassive. Seeing his old friends again, and something about the conversation as well, had roused the grim memories he always strove to keep at bay. Scenes from wartime flooded his mind, and most particularly faces—very young faces—of those who had died under his command. He had had far more than his fill of trying to guide young men past the shoals of life. It had brought him some satisfaction, but mainly pain—pain that did not go away.

  A brief grimace escaped Colin’s rigid control. He was doing his best to put all that behind him now, but his best wasn’t very imp
ressive. At moments like this, he despaired of success. Glancing briefly at Emma, he considered again a question that had been plaguing him ever since the marriage had been set. Was he taking advantage of her? He had been honest about the darkness that the war had left in him, but not about its extent. There was no way to convey that to one who had never experienced war. And even if he could, such revelations could only frighten and repel her.

  His jaw set. Things were best left as they were. He was giving her an honored name and a secure home. And he was well able to go on playing the part he had assumed at his homecoming. Marriage would do nothing to change that.

  Suddenly, Colin found he could not tolerate another moment of the noise and jollity of the party. “We must be on our way,” he said rather abruptly to Emma. “It is nearly four, and it is a long journey to Cornwall.”

  Silently, without looking at him, she rose and gathered her things.

  Colin frowned slightly as he too rose and offered his arm. They did not speak as Emma took it.

  There was a flurry among the crowd. A loudly congratulatory group, formed mainly of military officers, escorted them to Colin’s comfortable traveling carriage, which was waiting outside with their luggage already tied in back. Comments shouted by some of Colin’s old friends made Emma flush.

  They climbed in, and Colin struck the carriage roof with his stick to signal the driver. “At last,” he said as they started to move away.

  Emma waved through the window, and then sank back on the cushions as the wheels rattled over the cobblestones taking them out of London. She had done it, she thought—the mistake she had sworn never to repeat. She had married a man she hardly knew, and here she was alone with him, as she would be for the next few weeks. Now she would find out what he was really like—the quirks and impulses that made up his true nature—and experience told her that she would not find the process pleasant.

  Colin, gazing at her profile from the other side of the carriage, found it startlingly forbidding. “It looks as if we shall have good weather for the drive,” he said.

  Emma made a sound. It could not have been described as actually impolite, but it was far from encouraging.

  “Weddings are exhausting,” Colin added.

  “Are they?” she replied. “I have been to only two.” She continued to gaze out the window at the passing street scene. “And the first one scarcely counted as a ceremony,” she added under her breath.

  Colin didn’t hear the addition. “I have found them so,” he told her. “So often the gaiety seems forced.”

  “Forced,” repeated Emma rather tartly. “Really.”

  “Perhaps I mean artificial,” he amended. “In most cases, the event simply cements an alliance between two families. Sometimes the two people involved hardly know each other. Why pretend otherwise?”

  “Why indeed?”

  He saw his mistake. “Of course, I did not mean that today—”

  “There is no need to elaborate, my lord. I understand you very well.”

  “You know that I am most pleased to be married to you, Emma.”

  “Pleased. Yes, of course.”

  “I was speaking in general terms. It had nothing to do with us.”

  “On the contrary, it was very much to the point. We hardly know each other, after all.”

  “I thought we had come to a comfortable understanding,” he objected.

  “Comfortable?” The word almost exploded out of her.

  “Will you stop repeating everything I say? What is wrong with you?”

  Finally, she turned to him. “Wrong? With me? Nothing at all, my lord. You are the one complaining of fatigue.”

  “I did not complain of fatigue. I merely remarked—”

  “Sleep if you like,” interrupted Emma. “You needn’t be concerned for me. I shall be very happy not to talk.”

  “I thought you had more sense than to be offended by general remarks,” he said.

  “I am not the least offended by your opinion of weddings,” she replied hotly. “No doubt you are quite correct.”

  “Then what has overset you?” he demanded. “I have never seen you so prickly.”

  “Have you not? Well, I suppose we shall both learn a great many things about each other in the next few days,” was the sharp reply. Emma gripped the sill of the coach window so tightly her knuckles whitened. She was furious. It went beyond anything he deserved, but she couldn’t seem to quell the rage that had erupted in her.

  Colin examined her face, half turned away from him again. His slow, inexorable anger hadn’t really been kindled, but he did feel impatient. “We won’t learn much in this idle sparring. What is the matter?”

  “Nothing,” cried Emma, defeated by her own emotions. “Just let me be!”

  Silence fell in the carriage. The sound of hooves on the cobblestone, the cries of street vendors, seemed suddenly loud. They slowed, and the vehicle swayed on its springs as the driver negotiated a turn in the narrow London street. They had reached the main south road, Emma noted mechanically as the coach picked up speed. Soon, the outskirts of the city appeared, and after a little while longer, they were traveling through countryside.

  Emma’s anger faded with the turning wheels. She had been a bit hasty, she thought. What man would agree, on his wedding day, to assume responsibility for advising a wild young relative that he had barely met? It was a good deal to ask. And whether or not it was reasonable, she didn’t want this kind of marriage. She didn’t want it to begin in quarreling and coldness. She remembered the word Colin had used—comradeship. Their bargain had been based on that, and she had welcomed the idea. Was it already lost, in just a few hours?

  She was afraid to turn and look at Colin. She was afraid she would see the sort of rage and distaste Edward had directed at her whenever she made any complaint or demand. The thought of facing that sort of hostility again made her feel almost physically sick.

  “I think you will like Trevallan,” said Colin calmly. There was no hint of rancor in his tone.

  Emma took a breath.

  “It is built on cliffs above the sea,” he continued. “A stone house, for which one is very grateful during storms.”

  She let herself lean back against the seat, releasing her grip on the window.

  “Not that the climate is violent,” Colin went on. “In fact, I believe you will be surprised at how warm it is at this time of year. But we do get some weather off the ocean, of course.”

  Emma faced him. He met her eyes gravely, but one corner of his mouth was quirked slightly up, and his dark brows were raised just a bit.

  “Truce?” he said.

  Something deep inside Emma relaxed. She had not made a dreadful mistake. She was not a foolish, headstrong child any longer. She had made a sensible, well-considered bargain. And it would be kept. They were both quite capable of controlling their emotions. “Is there a village near the house?” she asked.

  Colin hesitated, as if he wanted to say something else, then nodded.

  ***

  Much later, Emma woke from a light doze to find the late summer sunset just fading from the sky. Blinking, she watched a flight of blackbirds take off from a huge oak beside the road and dip and wheel in the last glow, a confetti of black silhouettes against the red stripe at the horizon. The driver of the coach was turning off the road into a narrow lane bordered by high hedges. In a few minutes, he turned the team again, into the drive of a large house built of gray stone.

  “What is this?” asked Emma.

  “The home of a friend of mine,” said Colin. “We are staying here tonight.”

  “A bride visit?” asked Emma, a little dismayed.

  “No, Ralph is not here. He merely offered me the use of the place.”

  “Instead of an inn?”

  “I do not intend to spend my wedding night in a common inn,”
Colin declared a touch haughtily.

  Emma raised her eyebrows at his tone. “I beg your pardon, my lord baron,” she murmured.

  He smiled slightly. “It is not the sort of occasion for clumsy inn servants knocking to ask if we require things that we do not require, or crowds of drinkers raising a din in the taproom at an… inopportune moment.”

  Emma had stiffened. He had no way of knowing how closely this described elements of her first wedding night, she told herself. He meant nothing by it. Certainly he was not taunting her. And what lay ahead was nothing like the past. But she could not stop an unwelcome flood of memories that kept her still and silent as the carriage stopped before the front door of the house.

  It was opened by a footman as soon as they pulled up. One of their own servants was already at the carriage door, folding down the steps so that they could descend. Colin turned to get out. It took Emma a moment to gather her wits enough to step down onto the gravel drive and enter the fine front hall.

  It was obvious that the staff had received advance orders. They were cordially greeted by the housekeeper and shown the suite of rooms prepared for them on the second floor—a spacious parlor with a comfortable bedchamber opening out on either side. Their luggage was brought up and stowed. After that, everyone disappeared, leaving them alone.

  Emma’s nervousness increased. Telling herself not to be foolish, she went to one of the casement windows, open on the soft evening air, and looked out over the back of the property. There was just enough light left to see that the lawns sloped down to a broad, meandering stream where clumps of willows dangled their yellowing leaves into the water. Several horses grazed in the lush grass on the opposite bank. As she watched, a trio of swans drifted into view, very white against the dark water, floating effortlessly across the surface of the stream, their necks curved in arcs of utter grace. She heard footsteps behind her, and then Colin’s voice close to her ear. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I visited here often when I was a boy. There is a summerhouse in the midst of those willows there”—he pointed, his hand brushing her shoulder—“where one is surrounded by whispering leaves.”