by Mary Balogh
She did not have Christina with her, he noticed as soon as he reached the outer doors and assured the porter that she was not a hired assassin awaiting the Tsar’s return. Part of him was disappointed; he wanted to hear his daughter calling him “Papa” again. He wanted to feel her child’s arms tight about his neck. Part of him was happy; he would have Elizabeth alone for a short while even if she had come to argue with him, to beg him to leave her and Christina alone. She was looking pale and none too happy.
“How is Christina?” he asked when he had ushered her into his sitting room.
“Well,” she said, removing her bonnet and dropping it onto a table inside the door. She crossed immediately to the window and stood with her back to him. “Do you still want to marry me, Christopher?”
He held his breath. “Yes,” he said.
“Very well, then,” she said. “You can start to make the necessary arrangements for the summer. By then I will be free of my betrothal to Manley.”
She spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, as if she were talking about some ordinary business dealing. She was talking about their wedding!
“You are ready to betroth yourself to me now,” he said, “but to continue with your old betrothal too for a while? Isn’t that almost like bigamy?”
“No,” she said, “of course not. Sooner or later I am going to be treating Manley shabbily. We are betrothed. Half the ton were at our wedding, which you put an end to. For the next few weeks there are going to be daily and nightly celebrations for our foreign guests. It would be cruel to humiliate him now. It will be cruel anyway. I do not feel proud of myself.”
“Why are you going to marry me rather than him, then?” he asked.
“Is it just because of Christina?”
“Partly,” she said. “Half for Christina.”
And half for herself? he wondered. She was standing straight-backed at the window, staring out.
“And half for Christina’s brother or sister,” she said so quietly that for a moment he thought he might have imagined the words. But he knew he had not.
He gazed at her rigid back and felt as if a giant fist had just buried itself in his stomach. “You are with child again?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
His chest was sore, and his eyes were burning as they had done the afternoon before when Christina had put her arms about his neck and her soft cheek against his. He wanted to cry. They were going to have a child! His eyes moved down Elizabeth’s body from behind.
His child was inside her now. She was going to grow large with it.
And then there would be a tiny baby. Their son or daughter. Their second child.
“Elizabeth,” he said. He had not intended to whisper.
“It will be workable,” she said. “I know you love Christina. I believe you will love this new child too. Penhallow will be a good place for them to grow up. And I will need somewhere other than London to live for a while at least. It will be only fair to Manley for me to stay away from here. Devonshire is far enough. I shall try to be a good wife. I shall try to attend to your needs.”
“You should have told me sooner,” he said. “I would not have kept you standing for an hour and a half yesterday, Elizabeth, jostled by the crowds.”
She turned to look at him. Her face was hard and set. “One thing, Christopher,” she said. “I will not tolerate mistresses and whores. If there are any in the future-even one—I will take our children and leave you.”
“There have been a few women since our divorce,” he said. “There were none either during our marriage or before, Elizabeth. There have been none since I returned to England—none except you, of course. There will be no others for as long as we both live. I have always believed that marriage vows were meant to be kept.”
She flushed and looked away from his eyes. “I know you will want to see something of Christina,” she said. “I thought perhaps once a week until I can decently put an end to my betrothal. Out of respect for Manley, Christopher, please do not ask for more. Once the summer comes and we are married, she will be with you every day.”
“I’ll get a special license today,” he said. “We will marry tomorrow.”
She looked back at him, startled. “Tomorrow?” she said. “Are you mad?”
“You are with child by me,” he said. “I will not risk dying before the summer and having my son or daughter born a bastard.”
Her cheeks flushed a dull red.
“What are these engagements that are so important to Poole’s pride?” he asked. “List them.”
“There are too many to name,” she said. “Let me see. There is the opera-tonight. Manley is very excited about that. I am not quite sure why. And then tomorrow night, of course, there is the reception at Carlton House and the presentation to the queen. And dinners and balls and routs by the dozen for the next several weeks.”
“Tomorrow night is the occasion that will be most important to him,” he said. “You may go to that with him, Elizabeth, even though you will be marrying me in the morning. The day after tomorrow you will break the news to him in any manner you think best.”
She laughed. “You expect me to marry you in the morning and go to Carlton House with Manley in the evening?” he asked.
“I expect you to marry me in the morning,” he said. “I will permit you to go to Carlton House in the evening. You do not have to go. You are the one concerned about Poole’s pride, not me.”
She stared at him. “Very well,” she said at last. “It is to be only a marriage of convenience anyway, isn’t it? It should not matter that it will be a very strange wedding day.”
“No,” he said. “I suppose not. I’ll stay away from Carlton House myself.”
He wanted to cross the room to her. He wanted to gather her into his arms and kiss away the set, business-like look on her face. He wanted to feel the wonder of her body pressed to his, his child inside that body. He wanted to tell her with kisses and words that for him it would be anything but a marriage of convenience. He stayed where he was and clasped his hands behind him.
“Well, then,” she said, “that is all settled. Where is it to be, Christopher? The wedding, I mean. May I bring Christina? And John? I am not going to tell anyone else at the moment.”
“Not Martin?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Not Martin. Will you bring Nancy?”
“Yes,” he said. “Have John bring you here with Christina by ten o’clock. We’ll go to the church together. “
“Very well,” she said.
This was a wedding they were planning, he thought. Their own wedding. Yet they were standing twenty feet apart, both of them unsmiling and unemotional. They talked as if it were an outing to Kew they were planning. No, not even anything that exciting.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then,” she said, taking a step toward him—and toward her bonnet and the door.
“I’ll escort you to your carriage,” he said.
They were a pair of polite strangers.
“Oh,” she said when she reached the table and her bonnet. She lowered her head for a moment and then opened her reticule and reached inside. She drew out a small cloth clasp purse and held it out toward him without looking at him.
He took it and opened it. Her gold wedding ring was inside. He touched it with one finger.
“I want the same one,” she said in a tight voice.
“Yes,” he said. “It will be the same marriage really, won’t it? With a seven-year interruption.”
“Do you know what tomorrow is?” she asked him, closing her reticule carefully.
“Yes,” he said. “Our seventh wedding anniversary. Why did you bring the ring if you intended not to marry me until the summer?”
She raised her eyes to his. “I take it with me everywhere,” she said.
“Except to Penhallow. When you picked up my trunk to go there, you left my reticule behind. I never did ask you there why I had no wedding ring, did I? I did not even notice t
hat I had none. Or perhaps I did not want to notice.”
It was good there between us, he wanted to say. And her eyes held his as if she waited for him to say it. Our child was conceived there. In love. It was good. But she lowered her eyes before he could form the words and the moment passed.
“I’ll take you downstairs,” he said, “and see you safely past the mob to your carriage.”
“Thank you,” she said.
They were polite strangers again.
Christopher ascended the stairs again a few minutes later with his head down. For some reason she had decided not to tell Martin.
That was a relief, at least. His mind flashed back to the visit Martin had paid him two days before.
Martin had been his usual smiling, charming self. He had been rather upset to find, he had said, that Elizabeth was adamant in her plan to marry Poole, even though she did not love him, merely because she did not want to embarrass him. He knew, as any man of any feeling would, that she loved Trevelyan and wanted to marry him. And ought to marry him if only for their daughter’s sake.
The more he thought about it, Martin had said in obvious distress, the more he was convinced that that mad scheme they had talked about as something of a joke was after all a good idea. Dear Lizzie was just longing to be forced to follow her heart. She should be forced. And what better way was there to do it than to take Christina and make off to Penhallow with her? It would not be kidnapping, after all, would it? Trevelyan was the child’s father.
Christopher had pursed his lips and considered carefully and looked dubious. He did not want to do anything that would cause Elizabeth unnecessary anxiety.
But of course, Martin explained, he would leave a note for her so that she would know that Christina was safe. Had he not kept Elizabeth safe when he kidnapped her? Apart from the bump on the head, of course. But really that had been her fault, poor dear, impulsive Lizzie.
It might work, Christopher had agreed finally, frowning and looking anything but confident.
But of course it would work, Martin had said. They would plan it for the night of the Carlton House reception. He would bring Christina to the Pulteney, where Trevelyan would be waiting, all ready to leave. Lizzie would be gone almost all night. She probably would not look in on the nursery even when she returned. The nurse would be heavily drugged. By the time Lizzie read the note and checked the nursery to see that it was true, Trevelyan would be well on his way to Penhallow with his daughter. Lizzie of course would follow without delay, and she and Trevelyan would fall into each other’s arms as soon as they were reunited.
“It might work too,” Christopher had said, frowning with anxiety.
“I’ll do it, Martin. I have lost her for sure if I don’t, haven’t I?”
“It seems so,” Martin had said, smiling in sympathy. “I’ve always liked you, Trevelyan, and I no longer believe those stupid stories I was foolish enough to believe after you went to Canada. She belongs with you. She should marry you again.”
The two men had shaken hands heartily while Christopher had looked at the smiling Martin and wondered if he would ever have the satisfaction of smashing the smile and the face to smithereens. He fervently hoped so.
Looking back on that visit now, Christopher could begin to see how he might more easily put his own plan into effect. Elizabeth would be his wife by tomorrow. In fact he would make a new plan, one that should be quite easy to carry out.
If only she kept to what she had said and did not tell Martin about the wedding.
Chapter 27
It seemed to Christopher as he and John approached the offices of John’s man of business later that afternoon that they had set the man an impossible task.
“I rather wish now that I had decided upon the Spanish torture first,” John said. “It might have been quicker and would certainly have given me more satisfaction. When I look at Martin’s good-natured smile now, I cannot believe that all my life I have not seen the devil behind it.”
“There is a certain kidnapping scheme I have devised with Martin’s help,” Christopher said. “Involving Christina this time. I should tell you about it so that you will know what is happening if he tries to involve you in it. He might. But I need you to be involved on my side.”
He told John Martin’s plan and his own twists on that plan.
“Well,” John said, “I just hope Nancy does not have her heart set on going to Carlton House tomorrow evening. I don’t suppose she will when she knows that Martin will be getting his comeuppance instead, will she?”
Mr. Roberts stepped out of his inner office beaming and rubbing his hands together when the two gentlemen arrived on his premises.
He was pleased to report that Powers had been found with a great deal of difficulty only that morning.
“Simon Powers is not exactly what would be described as a respectable solicitor,” Mr. Roberts said. “He conducts shady dealings, if you were to ask me, my lord.” He nodded sagely in Christopher’s direction.
Neither did Mr. Simon Powers have his office in a respectable neighborhood. In fact, John remarked as the two men approached it half an hour later, he appeared to do business in the midst of moneylenders.
A shabby, hollow-eyed clerk was writing in a ledger in the outer room of Mr. Powers’s office and informed the gentlemen that Mr.
Powers was out on business and not likely to be back for the rest of the day. Christopher opened the door into the inner room, despite the feeble protests of the clerk, but it was indisputably empty.
He looked helplessly at John and back to the clerk. “We will be back tomorrow to consult with Mr. Powers,” he said. “Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Inform him we are potentially lucrative clients,” John said, withdrawing a coin from his pocket and tossing it to the clerk.
“It was probably more than Powers pays him in a quarter,” he said to Christopher as they left the office with some reluctance. “The poor devil looks somewhat cadaverous, wouldn’t you agree?”
Christopher sighed. “Although I have been persuading myself that it would not happen,” he said, “I have been hoping that it could all be settled today—the proof discovered, Martin confronted, Elizabeth informed. I have been hoping that tomorrow could be a happy day. Now we will not even be able to talk with Powers before the wedding.”
“Perhaps it is as well,” John said. “She has agreed to it, Christopher. She is going to be very upset when she learns the truth about Martin, you know, and realizes the years of suffering he brought on the two of you. The knowledge would not put her in the best mood for a wedding.”
“You are probably right,” Christopher said.
He had come home from America, he thought, determined to discover the truth and to do so as slowly and patiently as necessary.
Yet now that he was close, perhaps within a day of uncovering the whole truth, he found that patience was deserting him. He wanted to know now of even sooner.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m sure you are right, John.”
The opera house at the Haymarket was quite as crowded as John had predicted it would be. Every row and every box were crammed with people, everyone dressed in such splendor and glittering with such extravagant displays of jewels that it was difficult to imagine
how they all hoped to outdo themselves the very next evening at Carlton House.
When the Regent arrived with his foreign visitors, everyone rose and sang the national anthem and cheered for minutes on end.
Only one box was empty and very conspicuously so. There were those afterward who swore to the fact that the Regent glanced at it nervously all through the first act of the opera and only when it was over seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and bask in the reflected glory his guests brought him.
But he relaxed too soon. Just as the second act was about to begin, there was a general stir and the empty box was suddenly empty no longer. With a loud rustling the Princess of Wales appeared, looking grotesque in a spangled gown, bright yellow curls,
and heavy rouge that could be detected even in the farthest corner of the theater.
All eyes swiveled from- the apparition to the Regent, who was sitting rigid and pale in his own box. And then the Tsar of Russia got to his feet and bowed to the princess, the other monarchs followed his lead, and the Regent, left with no choice, rose and bowed to his estranged wife. Only then did the strange silence of the opera house erupt into loud and sustained cheers. The Regent covered his confusion and his fury by smiling and bowing and acknowledging the cheers as his due.
The second act of the opera was further delayed when some members of the audience, three prominent Whig gentlemen with their ladies, saw fit to take their personal greetings to the princess’s box. Amid further applause, she bowed graciously to them, they withdrew, and the main business of the evening could be proceeded with.
Elizabeth was angry. She had always known that Manley was a Whig and that his sympathies lay with the Princess of Wales. She had always respected his opinions even when she disagreed with them.
She did not entirely disagree about the princess, though she considered the woman vulgar and unworthy of being the future queen of England. But then the Regent was no better.
What angered her was that she had been forced, without her permission, in full view of the Regent himself and all his foreign guests and of the ton, to appear to be giving her public and unqualified support to the princess. Lord Poole had taken her into the princess’s box, and she had been forced to curtsy deeply and receive the woman’s smile and the audience’s applause. She could have avoided doing so only if she had made a rather public issue of it. She would not do that. This evening and tomorrow evening were to be devoted to bolstering Manley’s pride.
But what he had forced her into was unfair. She was more than angry. She was furious. And she had to sit smiling by his side for the rest of the evening. They were late leaving the theater because the crowd waiting outside mobbed the Princess of Wales’s carriage, cheering for her with loud ecstasy, and would not let it pass for a long while. And then the Tsar and the King of Prussia and all the others had to have their turn.