by Carla Kelly
“Very well, minx, if that's what you choose. Go along, now, and come to me when you have something to say.”
She had nothing to say on Monday but sat by the window watching the rain, wondering if it were truly possible to die from a broken heart. Knowing that it was not brought her no consolation. She hung the wedding dress in the back of the wardrobe, out of sight.
Tuesday the sky was clear, a washed-out blue that was a pale cousin to the brilliance of Yorkshire's summer glory. She took up her post by the window, situating herself so that she was positioned in a northwesterly direction. If I look this way, I can pretend that I see him. When things become so bad in the vicarage, I can stand at the window and play my wishing game.
But she knew there would be no more wishing game. That had died with Gerald. She would have to face that fact now.
Onyx was still at the window Tuesday afternoon when there was a knock.
“Come in,” she said. She should have opened the door, but she felt disinclined to move.
Lady Bagshott came into the room. Her face was a study in composure. She held out a letter, and Onyx's heart that had been wrung of blood plummeted to the floor. Jack's handwriting was on the envelope.
“Adrian died yesterday,” said Lady Bagshott. She looked at the letter. “He had sunk into a coma from which he never recovered. He was in no pain at the end.”
Good, Onyx thought. Good that one of us should be in no pain. I'm glad it was Adrian.
“Have you absolutely nothing to say, girl?” said Lady Bagshott, her voice rising.
Onyx shook her head and then covered her face with her hands and leaned against the windowpane, crying deep, gasping sobs. Her body felt as though it would turn itself inside out as she struggled to breathe.
Lady Bagshott was across the room in a few steps. She sat beside Onyx in the window seat and held her until she was through crying. She said nothing and made no motion to pet her in any way, but she held her tight and would not let her go until there wasn't a tear left in Onyx's body.
Onyx wiped her face with her handkerchief. “Is there … was there a message for me?”
Lady Bagshott looked at the letter. “I don't know. Jack starts to wander at the bottom of the letter. I imagine he is under a great strain.”
Oh, you have no idea, Lady Bagshott, Onyx thought.
“What does he say?”
“It's curious. Something about curanderos and eyes. I don't understand it. Well, I will go now. Blow your nose, and I will send up my abigail with some cucumbers for your eyes. Won't do to have bags under them for your wedding tomorrow. Won't do at all. Oh, the funeral is tomorrow too, and then Jack writes that Emily is leaving immediately with her sisters for her ancestral home.”
Onyx's wedding day was as beautiful as a bride could wish for. She sat in her bathwater until it was quite cold and then dried off and pulled on everything except her wedding dress. Lady Bagshott had sent her maid to arrange her hair, plus a little necklace of sapphires. “Something old and borrowed and blue,” said the abigail. “You know how Lady Bagshott loves to economize.”
The maid helped her with her wedding gown and then went downstairs to dress Lady Bagshott. Onyx sat on her bed. She picked up the little bouquet and smelled it. It reminded her of Yorkshire and her last day in the meadow with Jack, so she put it aside. She went to the window and stood looking toward Sherbourn, shading her eyes and wishing for one miraculous glimpse.
And then she knew she could not go through with her marriage to Andrew Littletree. The feeling seemed to come from nowhere, and it covered her like a little shower. No matter that the Daggetts were just now driving up in their coach to the front entrance. They had spent the night at a nearby inn. No amount of persuasion had convinced Sir Matthew to sleep under his older sister's roof, even when Amethyst pouted and stormed and declared that her dress would be wrinkled past remedy.
Onyx had never done anything so disobedient in her life. She unbuttoned her dress, reaching around to the back until she was free of it and could step out.
Someone knocked at the door. “Who is it, please?” she asked, hoping that her voice did not tremble.
“It is I, Lady Bagshott.”
“Then come in, madam.”
Lady Bagshott swept into the room, resplendent from her purple turban to her purple sandals. She watched Onyx Hamilton remove the dress and her eyes grew wider as her color grew darker.
“What are you doing, Miss Hamilton?”
“I am taking off this dress, Lady Bagshott, and when I am done, it goes back to the wardrobe. I will put on another dress, and if I cannot escape from this place by the doors, I will climb down the vines outside this window. I will not marry Andrew Littletree. Not. Not. Not.”
She stood there defiantly in her petticoat and chemise.
Her hands trembled and shook. She remained in that pose until Lady Bagshott began to rumble deep in her throat. It was the sound of volcanoes, of stagecoaches all hurtling toward the same inn, of thunder over the Yorkshire fells. Onyx stared in total amazement as it finally dawned on her that the woman was laughing.
Lady Bagshott sat on the bed and rocked herself back and forth. She held up a hand, as if to stop herself, but the wave of humor was remorseless as a tide. She abandoned herself to her mirth as Onyx watched in slack-jawed wonder.
Lady Bagshott finally gathered her wits about her and said in a strangled voice, “Oh, he was so right!”
“Whom are you talking about?” Onyx demanded. “I am through with this silliness. I don't have to marry that nonsensical man. I have learned enough of the sickroom this summer to command a princely wage in Bath or Tunbridge Wells, tending to the elderly and infirm.”
That information set Lady Bagshott off again. She whooped and gasped until the moment faded. “I rather think you should hurry to Yorkshire and marry Jack Beresford,” she said when she was able.
“Oh, no,” she protested. “Think of my circumstances. How can someone who doesn't even know who her father is consider marriage to a marquess? You must be all about in your head, Lady Bagshott. I know I was thinking of such a thing, but I'm quite over it now.”
“Quite?”
“Quite, quite.”
“Well, let me tell you, my frippery miss. So you don't know who your parents were? What is that to anything? I know who mine were, and it is no consolation, believe me!” She patted the bed. “Sit down. I have something to tell you before you totally destroy the happiness of a perfectly decent, if somewhat ramshackle, man. And yours too, I suspect. Mercy, but you are stubborn! I wonder where you get that from?”
Onyx sat down on the bed.
Lady Bagshott cleared her throat in the best imitation of the Reverend Littletree. “You will not like this by half,” Lady Bagshott said, “but how can I make amends for that? Besides, you have changed over this summer. Perhaps it will not seem so odd for someone who shoots highwaymen.”
“Indeed,” Onyx murmured. “How can anything ever seem odd again? Fire away, Lady Bagshott. I begin to feel somewhat diverted already.”
“Diverted indeed! I hope you are sitting completely down, miss.”
“Completely.”
“Twenty-three, goodness, almost twenty-four years ago, my father engaged an Italian dancing master one summer to teach me the steps before I was to go down to London for my first Season.” Her face softened for a moment, and then she fixed Onyx with her level stare. “His name was Geraldo Onicci. Twins ran in his family, he told me one afternoon when we really should have been dancing.”
Onyx stared at her as her mouth slowly opened.
“You see, my dear, dear girl, I named you and your brother after my lovely dancing master.”
“Geraldo Onicci?” Onyx repeated. “Gerald and Onyx.”
“He was a handsome man with numerous remarkable attributes, not the least of which were his beautiful jet-black hair and eyes of quite an extraordinary shade of blue. Don't think you didn't give me a real start at the beginning of th
is summer!”
“Indeed,” Onyx repeated.
“Can you say nothing but ‘indeed’ and fix me with that simpleminded stare?” demanded Lady Bagshott.
“Probably not,” Onyx replied. “This is a bit of a surprise, you must agree.”
“I was surprised twenty-three years ago, miss! You are merely astonished!” Her voice became softer then. “And what could I do? The scandal would have been breathtaking.” She laughed to herself. “All my friends thought I was spending a year on the Grand Tour. Little did they know!”
“What did you do, madam?” Onyx asked.
“Papa dismissed my dancing master, and I spent a prodigious time indoors, miss! When the time came … I knew that the Reverend Hamilton was a good man. When you were born, I named you and pinned your names to the blanket. My maid carried you two in one basket to the steps of the church. No one outside the family ever knew.”
Onyx put her hand in Lady Bagshott's.
“I have had my regrets, of course, but these I must live with. Lord Bagshott and I were never able to have children. I have thought of you many times over the years. And when Gerald died … oh, Onyx, how it hurt.”
Onyx tightened her grip on Lady Bagshott. “I own we were surprised to see you at the memorial service.”
“I could never have stayed away,” Lady Bagshott said simply. She sat another moment and then let go of Onyx. “And now there will be no wedding?”
“I have already told you that I will not marry Andrew.”
Onyx stood up and took her wedding dress from the back of the wardrobe, folding it carefully and replacing the Wedgwood vase within it. “The Reverend Littletree is about to be jilted at the altar. That is the only way, of course. This perfidy will allow him the opportunity to blame it on my misplaced ancestry and entitle him to the sympathy of the world. As for me, I care not.”
“Bravo, my dear, as your father used to say. Of course, I cannot acknowledge you. Such things are not done.”
Onyx only smiled. “It doesn't matter. I thought it did once, but I was wrong.”
“I can serve you best in other ways, if you should chance to consider an alliance with Jack Beresford. I expect to make many future trips to Sherbourn. I imagine there will be many christenings to attend there. Mercy, child, how you can blush! Jack probably even finds that endearing.”
Lady Bagshott went to the window, looking down on the people assembled on the front lawn, waiting for Onyx and Lady Bagshott to come out. “When the polite world sees how regularly the very proper Lady Bagshott visits the new Lord Sherbourn and his romp of a wife, there will be some revision of opinion among the better families. The rest you need hardly concern yourself with.”
“And the Reverend Littletree?”
“My dear girl, he does not know it yet—and indeed, neither does the governing board of King's College—but Andrew Littletree is going to receive a letter informing him of his new position as professor of homiletics. Andrew Littletree will bore an entire generation of student clergymen but will, I am thankful to say, have no direct effect on the tender lives of any parish. I suspect this could earn me some heavenly credit. Here, let me help you button that! You must hurry.”
She turned Onyx around and did up the buttons. “And when I have finally stuck my spoon in the wall, my dear, you will be gratified to receive a generous settlement. The estate, I fear, is entailed away to a relative of Lord Bagshott's, but what is that to anything? You'll already be long husbanded by a peer of the realm and quite the wealthiest man in Yorkshire.”
“If he will have me,” said Onyx as she crammed the rest of her belongings back in the valise and fastened it shut.
“He will have you. Make no mistake.”
Onyx turned to look at her, almost spoke, but changed her mind. She put on her shoes. “Lady Bagshott, you'll have to advance me the loan of the fare on the mail coach.”
“With pleasure. If we sneak down the back stairs, I am sure that we will find a gig waiting to take you to the highway.”
“Lady Bagshott, you had every intention—”
“I did. You know how I hate to waste anything. Especially you and all those grandchildren I am already anticipating.”
“Lady Bagshott, I must know something.”
“Make it fast, girl! Those people won't wait forever!” The thought made Lady Bagshott laugh.
“Why did you not say something to me sooner? And indeed, madam, you must admit that toward me you have been a perfect Gorgon.”
“Yes, I have, haven't I?” agreed the Gorgon. “I suppose I wanted to see what you were made of before I spilled my budget.”
She coughed, and Onyx was wise enough to look away for a moment. “You'll do, miss, you'll do!’
“Lady Bagshott, I—”
“No tears, no tears. Give me a hug. That's a girl. Now, hurry up!”
Onyx was deposited at the crossing by Sherbourn the next morning. She was stiff from sitting upright all night beside a farmer and his wife who both smelled of onions and quarreled until nearly dawn. Her head ached, and the old doubts were starting to chase themselves around in her head.
She started walking across the haying field. The valise was light and she did not mind carrying it. She craned her neck for her first glimpse of Sherbourn. The air was cool, and autumn was in the breeze. Soon there would be snow and long days indoors before the fire.
She stood still. What if he does not want me? What if Lady Bagshott and I both have windmills in our heads?
Onyx could not be sure, but she thought she saw Jack Beresford riding across lots toward the crofters, who were forking the last load of timothy grass onto the wain. She hurried closer and hoped it was he. Soon she was running across the field and waving her arms, taking her chances, living deep, as Jack Beresford had told her to do. She called to him, and he stopped and slowly dismounted, as if he were an old man.
He was dressed in black, and the sight of it brought tears to her eyes. Oh, Jack, she thought. And you had to go through that without me.
She waved to him, jumping up and down, and then he started walking toward her. Soon he was running, with his arms open wide.
He grabbed her and threw her in the air, catching her in a froth of petticoats and silk stockings she had saved for her wedding but hadn't taken the time to change. He was crying and laughing at the same time, and when he kissed her, there was nothing gentle about him.
“Did Lady Bagshott change your mind?” he asked when he let her up for air.
“No, I had changed my mind earlier, only she …” Onyx stopped. “What do you mean, Lady Bagshott? Oh, I sense a great plot here, you scurvy man.”
“I did indeed go to Leeds during those four days, Onyx almost-Beresford. I also went to Chalcott for a little consolation and plain speaking from that magnificent harridan. I was treated to a most diverting tale of Italian dancing masters and twins.” He let go of her long enough to bow before her. “Will you marry me, Onyx Onicci?”
“I should not, of course,” she began and then couldn't say any more until he stopped kissing her. “I should rather take up a career tending the sick.”
“I'm sure there will be plenty of croup and chicken pox and cuts and bruises around here to tend, my beloved,” he said. “I know that motherhood must sound dreadfully tame to you after the events of this summer, but if I were the father, would that sweeten the pill just a little?”
“I wouldn't have it any other way.”
He kissed her again, holding her so close that she began to wonder what the men in the haying fields were thinking.
“As I see it, we have two choices,” he said. His voice sounded quite unsteady, and that seemed ample repayment for her own rubbery legs. “We can wait six months until the deepest period of mourning is over around here. You can return to Chalcott for this time. I will remain here. Or—and this is the alternative I suggest—we can go to Sherbourn Crossing immediately and be married at once, and blast the neighbors.”
His hands wer
e around her waist and wandering up her bodice. “I prefer the second choice, Jack. But surely you have no license,” she reminded him, and she brushed his hands down, another mistake.
He paused in his wandering and patted his pocket. “Oh, it's at home. In my riding coat is a special license. I was busy that day in Leeds.”
“You were, sir. I love you.”
“And I love you. Before he was swallowed whole by that coma, Adrian told me to hang on, and I did just that.”
Her eyes brightened with tears as she kissed him and steered her beloved Major Jack Beresford in the general direction of Sherbourn, one campaign over, a better one beginning.
ARLA KELLY IS A VETERAN OF THE NEW YORK and international publishing world. The author of more than thirty novels and novellas for Donald I. Fine Co., Signet, and Harlequin, Carla is the recipient of two Rita Awards (think Oscars for romance writing) from Romance Writers of America and two Spur Awards (think Oscars for western fiction) from Western Writers of America.
Recently, she's been writing Regency romances (think Pride and Prejudice) set in the Royal Navy's Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars between England and France. She comes by her love of the ocean from her childhood as a Navy brat.
Carla's history background makes her no stranger to footnote work, either. During her National Park Service days at the Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, Carla edited Friedrich Kurz's fur trade journal. She recently completed a short history of Fort Buford, where Sitting Bull surrendered in 1881.
Following the “dumb luck” principle that has guided their lives, the Kellys recently moved to Wellington, Utah, from North Dakota and couldn't be happier in their new location. In her spare time, Carla volunteers at the Railroad and Mining Museum in Helper, Utah. She likes to visit her five children, who live here and there around the United States. Her favorite place in Utah is Manti, located after a drive on the scenic byway through Huntington Canyon.
And why is she so happy these days? Carla doesn't have to write in laundry rooms and furnace rooms now, because she has an actual office.