The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  The baron interrupted. “My lord, I am relieved to see you so much recovered. Although from the doctor’s reports, I feel sure you should still be abed for many days to come. I trust your good father has informed you that, under these unfortunate circumstances, we feel it best to take Emeline home with us for some months while you remain under doctor’s orders. We shall leave this coming Monday, sir.”

  Nicholas looked up at his wife. “So eager to be gone, my dear?”

  She shook her head and blushed, one eye to her father’s frown. “It is not – nor my own –”

  And Nicholas said, “Perhaps you intend applying for an annulment?” and then looked up at the page boy now standing intent beside the chair. “Get wine,” he ordered him. “The cellars weren’t all destroyed, I presume? Bring the best of whatever remains.” He turned again to Emeline. “Well, madam? I know your feelings, and I think you know mine.”

  The baron coughed. “I do not consider this to be an appropriate time, sir, but am I to understand –?” and was interrupted yet again. The door was pushed wide as the pageboy hurried out, and the baroness and Avice promptly hurried in with the slightly tumbled appearance of those who might possibly have been listening outside the door. Emeline sighed and the baron scowled.

  “Emma dear, and my dear Nicholas,” said the baroness, recovering her dignity, “how delightful to see you well enough to leave your sickbed, though I hardly think –”

  And Avice said, “Papa says Emma has to come home with us but she says she doesn’t want to.”

  At which Nicholas raised one eyebrow, sat a little straighter and said, “How alarming.”

  “Emeline’s wishes have nothing to do with this,” said the baron with deliberation. “It has been decided between myself and his lordship, your esteemed father.”

  So Nicholas said at once, “On the contrary, my lord. My esteemed father’s wishes are of no consequence whatsoever.”

  “Oh dear, it would be for the best, sir,” sighed the baroness. “With the Keep and all the principal chambers destroyed and yourself so shockingly injured, I cannot feel that Emma should remain, and it having been only four days since the wedding –”

  At which point Emeline took a step forwards, cleared her throat, blushed again, and announced, “I cannot go home, Maman. I have decided – and would prefer – and the fact is,” with one wild look around at the hedge of impatient irritation surrounding her, continued, “I am – I believe I am – with child.”

  The little fire sizzled on the hearth as the wind blustered outside the window and was funnelled down the chimney. Smoke billowed and the small arid chamber became suddenly fogged and acrid. There was, for a moment, total silence until Avice began to cough and squinted, saying, “Gracious. Is that how babies happen?”

  Her Maman said quickly, “Emma my dear, after just four days? I hardly think – nor would anyone – and this does not seem the moment for such delicate –”

  Nicholas was watching his young wife in considerable amusement. “My apologies, but I believe I should like a quiet word with my wife in private. If everyone would be so good?” And waited as the baroness hesitated, then clutched her younger daughter’s wrist, and left with one last desperate look over her shoulder.

  The baron stood his ground. “My daughter is an innocent, sir, and has passed a night of disturbance and discomfort. Before that, there was the fire – the injuries – I fear she is unwell. I would prefer to speak to her myself first, also in private. I trust you do not object?”

  Emeline stared from one to the other. Her father stood impregnable as she had always seen him. Nicholas sprawled, slack in the chair to which he clung. Bandaged, scarred and in pain, he could neither stand, nor should have left his bed. She had no idea why he had, since he showed little interest in where she had gone or why. But when he spoke, although his voice was weak, he said, “But I do object, my lord. It appears I have something of an intimate nature to discuss with my wife.”

  “It would seem,” Baron Wrotham stared down at the semi prone invalid before him, “that under these delicate and unexpected circumstances, my daughter should speak first with her mother. My family priest is waiting for her downstairs, but that can wait if necessary. After she has spoken with her mother and then with myself, I shall, if you wish it, sir, send her to your chamber. So with your permission, I will now take her to my baroness.”

  The earl’s son smiled broadly and slumped a little further within the chair. “No, I believe not, my lord,” he said with genial deliberation. “You do not have my permission. I claim my wife’s patience, and will detain her for only a short time before releasing her into the company of her mother.”

  As her father still made no noticeable effort to remove himself, Emeline clasped her hands very tightly around her soot stained bedrobe, stared at her bare toes, shook her tousled head, and said very softly, “Papa, I really have to speak with Nicholas.”

  It was after the baron, silent with unspoken fury, had marched from the chamber that Emeline turned to her husband. But he raised one finger. “Wine first,” he said, as the page trotted in with a tray holding the brimming jug and several cups. “Some form of lubrication is always helpful in such situations.” The page poured the wine, and was immediately dismissed. Emeline passed one cup and clutched the other. With both hands bandaged into paws, Nicholas clasped the cup with difficulty and drank deeply, watching her over the brim as he drained it. “After three days of sour milk slops,” he said, “I escaped my bed for this more than anything else. But you’ve supplied a far greater diversion than I expected, madam.”

  “As far as I can see,” said Emeline, slowly sipping her Burgundy, “you don’t care about me one way or the other. You just wanted to annoy your father and mine.”

  He grinned. “Isn’t that your own motive? I’m flattered to see you prefer my company to your father’s, but I’m not so simple as to imagine you know yourself with child just three and a half days after a brief wedding night of complete abstention. I learned to tell a goose from a capon a good many years ago, my lady. And I might otherwise ask whose child you think you’re carrying, but my dear brother died some six months gone, and you’re far too trim for a woman more than six months pregnant. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to escape your father with whatever lies appeal to you, and find yourself a corner somewhere to sleep within this God forsaken ruin, make yourself at home and do whatever you wish. Meanwhile I shall patiently await the miraculous appearance of my heir.”

  Emeline hiccupped. “But surely, even just sharing a bed – I could be –”

  “You could not,” said Nicholas.

  “And three days ought to be enough –”

  “It isn’t,” her husband informed her. “Have you never discussed such matters with your mother?”

  “Gracious no,” whispered his wife. “Papa is very strict, you know, and if it isn’t in the Bible, then it doesn’t get discussed.”

  Nicholas was still smiling. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it is in the Bible in some form or other. And even Peter explained nothing to you?”

  Emeline glared at him. “Peter? Of course not. He would never have spoken of such intimate matters, and nor would I ever have permitted such a conversation. And you’re rude and stupid and spiteful to infer such things and you seem to have a problem with envy, which I can understand, since Peter was so obviously more – but it’s not dignified – or proper.”

  “Envy?” Nicholas attempted to wedge himself upwards with his elbows to the chair arms, but winced and collapsed back again. “Envious of Peter?” he demanded, his voice fading in spite of indignation. “Why, in all that’s holy, should I ever have been jealous of Peter?”

  “Every possible reason I can think of,” said Emeline through her teeth. “And I’m just very glad if I’m not having your child. And what have geese and capons got to do with anything anyway, or are you just bad tempered because you’re hungry?”

  Nicholas stared at his wife
. “No madam, I was referring to neither poultry nor dinner, and it’s probably better under the circumstances if I don’t explain what I was referring to.” He winced again, and quickly nursed the hand he had been clenching. “But bad tempered I probably am,” he continued, his voice now growing louder. “With some possible excuse, if you care to remember. Having been ordered to marry my brother’s mistress, I’m then forced to pass a chilly wedding night until significantly warmed by my home exploding in flames. Upon which I rescue my sot of a father, who no doubt started the fire in the first place, am roasted alive and consequently confined to bed where a parcel of inferior and idiotic medicks argue over how little to feed me and how much to bleed me while stuffing every crevice of my body with foul smelling fats. I am obliged to sleep in some damned abandoned guest chamber without even a semblance of comfort, and am then threatened with an agonising death should I so much as attempt to leave that bed for the privy. Both my ignoble parent and my pugnacious father-in-law promptly treat me as a witless infant just because I cannot stand, and I am finally informed that my bride has managed to conceive a child without –” and Nicholas took a very deep breath and stopped abruptly.

  Emeline was no longer listening. There was only one sentence which had penetrated her consciousness, and she stepped forwards, glared down at the man she had married, and flung the last dregs of her wine in his face. “How dare you!” she demanded, turned and grabbed the wine jug.

  Nicholas laughed, which was not at all what she had expected, and did not placate her in the least. “No, no,” he yelled, raising his arm as best he could. “A dreadful waste.” A thin crimson trickle had merged with the goose grease down his face and he managed to wipe it away with the bandaged back of his hand. “Have pity. Our supplies are dangerously low,” he said, “since so many butts were burned and I doubt there’s much decent Burgundy left. This is at least drinkable. Find something else to throw at me.”

  She replaced the wine jug on the table, turned her back and marched to the little window seat where she sat heavily and finally said, “I wasn’t. You have to know that.”

  “Peter’s mistress?” He grinned. “Well, my dear brother was an inveterate liar, but I presume some of the things he claimed must have been true.”

  “He would never – ever – have said that. It is you who are lying.” It helped that he clearly could not rise, stride over, nor strike her. She said, “Peter was good, and noble, and honest, and I do not at all believe him capable of inventing vulgar tales.”

  “I could tell you,” Nicholas remained cheerful, “just how he described you – and vulgar would come nowhere near it, my dear. What of course he could never have suspected, was that one day I’d have an excellent opportunity of checking the truth of his descriptions for myself.”

  She leaned her cheek against the chill of the frosted window pane, for her face was burning. She whispered, “You’re vile and I wish I’d never married you. And with Peter not a year in his grave – and you say such wretched things about him. And let me tell you, he told me all about you too – and I’m quite sure it was all true but none of it was vulgar because Peter was far too upright to speak vulgarities. And,” she sniffed with a very small additional hiccup, “I loved him.”

  “Oh good Lord,” sighed Nicholas. “Poor muddle headed little mouse. What you have no way of knowing is that you’ve had a fair escape. Not by marrying me of course, since I’m probably no better. But presumably you’d been dreaming those romantic tales of courtly love and King Arthur and Sir Gawain, and imagined Peter as another Lancelot as soon as my brother was introduced to you. Once wed, you’d have had a nasty shock. And remember this, I was also ordered into a marriage I had no taste for. I imagined – having believed – well, now I’m none too sure. But we’ll somehow have to make the best of it and in the meantime you can sleep in peace. I’m about as incapacitated as a drowned worm and there’ll be no pregnancies just yet, I assure you. I suppose if you say your dalliance with Peter was innocent, I’m prepared to take your word for it. And I can just imagine what delightful stories he told you about me. Some of them may even be true.”

  She hiccupped again. “I’m not a mouse,” she said after a long pause.

  “More like a rat at the moment,” her husband observed. “If you’ve a predilection for sleeping in ashes and cinders in the future, madam, you can damn well sleep alone.”

  “I intend to anyway,” Emeline said, standing abruptly. “I shall now inform my father that I choose to return home to Gloucestershire with him after all.”

  “No, you won’t,” grinned Nicholas. “I think I’ll exercise my superior claims and keep you here. I need some sort of diversion while I’m chained to my bed. You’ll do just fine.”

  Chapter Seven

  “I am not a – commodity,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “You cannot order me here while my father orders me elsewhere and your father wants me somewhere else entirely as if I can be pushed around like a gardener’s barrow. I can make my own choices, and I may – or may not – decide to tell you once I’ve made up my mind. In the meantime, you can just go away. I think you’re horrid.”

  Nicholas had not yet stopped grinning. “I can’t go away. I can’t walk without help. Besides, it seems a touch brutal to dismiss me since this is, after all, my home.”

  “Well, I shall go away,” said Emeline. “And you can just carry on sitting here until someone comes in and falls over you.”

  He laughed. “Since you’re so keen to hurry off, I presume you’re eager to spend more time with your benevolent Papa before he leaves. He is leaving soon, I hope? Good. Unfortunately I can’t banish my own since he still owns the place, but I can revert to ignoring him whenever possible.”

  “So it was him you were escaping that time you climbed out of the window in your best frilly pink skirts?” Emeline inquired with hauteur. “Or were you escaping me? Your prospective bride? Completely avoided and ignored, even after being dragged miles and miles in filthy weather just to be introduced to you?”

  “Something like that.” Nicholas shifted, wincing as he managed to straighten both legs. “As it happens, my personal collection of gowns is rather a small one, but I needed a quick getaway. Escaping you, I suppose. You see, I’d already had a full description from Peter.”

  Emeline flopped back down on the window seat. “Stop talking about Peter like that,” she mumbled. “It’s upsetting. I loved him very much and I still do and I’ve dreamed about him every night for a year and more and he was the kindest, most elegant and courteous man I’ve ever met. And I was so proud – so happy to think I’d be his wife.”

  “Should a dutiful wife inform her husband that she’s still in love with his brother?” Nicholas was still grinning.

  “I’m no dutiful wife,” Emeline informed him without compunction. “You’ve never given me a chance to behave like one, and besides, if it hadn’t been for that dreadful tragedy, it’s Peter I would have married. It was wicked murder, I’m sure it was. I cried every day and every night for weeks. Then Papa said I had to marry you instead and that made it even worse. Even you ought to understand how awful that felt.”

  “Having to marry me? Simply frightful. I sympathise.” He did not look too sympathetic. “But there’s something you don’t understand, my dear. We’re a reprehensible family and there’s not one of us worth marrying. Living alone up here without much access to feminine company except for a few servants and the village girls, has made us neither courtly nor virtuous. My father’s a drunken bully, and anyway he’s usually away at court. Peter and I ran wild most of our lives. My mother died when I was six, and in spite of regular beatings, any education in manners stopped then and there.”

  “But Peter was –”

  “A saint. Somehow I must have missed that side of him.”

  The dream softened expression returned. “As a brother, no doubt you wouldn’t have seen him in the same way. But I knew him better.” Her eyes quickly moistened, catching
the candle light. “When I met him the very first time, he knelt at my feet and took my hand, and explained – well, I suppose you will laugh at me. But I’d been a little frightened, you see, when Papa said my marriage was arranged. I’d lived a very quiet life because Papa is so strict.”

  Nicholas interrupted her. “The dastardly and ignominious Chatwyns with a strictly Christian Wrotham maiden? A mismatch from the start, my dear.”

  “It wouldn’t have been, not with Peter.” Emeline sniffed and began to search for her kerchief, which wasn’t there. “No man had even touched my hand before – not like that. But Peter’s touch was so delicate – so courteous. He told all about how he had asked for me specially, begged for me in fact, because he’d seen me once when he’d come hunting in Gloucestershire, and fallen in love from afar. So he begged your Papa to approve the match. And of course the earl had to be persuaded because he’s an earl and we are inferiors, but Peter managed to talk him around because he thought I was beautiful and was –,” she paused. “There’s no need to snigger. I know I‘m not really beautiful.”

  Nicholas said, “Your father approached my father, not the other way around. Peter had never seen you in his life before the marriage arrangements were already begun. But he was pleased enough and it had nothing to do with beauty, I assure you. You’re an heiress, my dear.”