by Burnett, May
Conscious of her father’s searching look she said only, “It was not easy to adapt to Mrs. Trevelyan’s ways. She imposed stricter discipline that I was comfortable with, or needed.”
“But surely you understand that she was acting from the noblest motives, out of a deep sense of responsibility.”
So he still persisted in his delusions about his wife. Abigail wanted to roll her eyes. “You were not there. It was a difficult time for me.”
“At any rate, now that you are engaged all that is at an end – or will be as soon as you marry. If you are eager for your own establishment, I suggest that you set a date sooner rather than later.”
“Actually, I was envisaging a long – a decent length of betrothal, Papa.”
He stared at her suspiciously. “Why on earth? You are nearly of age, and your groom is not getting any younger. Lord Branscombe was telling me about his hopes for grandchildren by next year, and how long he has waited and pressed for Barton to fix his choice. Is there any disagreement between the two of you?”
“How could there be? Lord Barton is everything that is admirable and eligible.”
“So everyone tells me, but I haven’t seen the young man yet. Why is he gone from the house so long, when he should be here, wooing you?”
She might invent some lovers’ quarrel, but more lies were only going to complicate her life further. She said nothing.
“Whatever the problem is, you need to talk to each other,” the Captain urged. “If you cannot talk frankly between you, your marriage will inevitably run aground.”
“Oh, we do, Papa. We have known each other a good while and understand each other.”
“When did he first tell you he loved you?”
She made a weary gesture. “Papa, please. Some things must remain private.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes,” she admitted in a low voice. Unfortunately, that was true enough.
“Then if only you are open with each other, anything can be worked out and settled. You will see.”
Abigail did not reply, and turned the conversation upon her father’s recent adventures aboard his ship as they walked back towards the house.
Chapter 22
Jeremy returned in the early afternoon, forewarned by his father’s message that Abigail’s father and stepmother had arrived, and were staying on as additional guests.
The timing of the Captain’s visit could hardly have been worse. Right after he had unsuccessfully attempted to bed his betrothed, now he had to look her father in the eye? The father who had not the slightest idea of his child’s troubles while he was merrily chasing enemy ships with cannon fire and billowing sails?
Jeremy reminded himself that a sailor’s life was hard and full of deprivations, though Captains were surely much better off than simple seamen. They had to leave their womenfolk behind for years on end. Captain Trevelyan had left his daughter unprotected, so that she now had nobody else to defend her and guard her secrets but Jeremy. And he was not the strong oak he would like to imagine – last night he had proven himself a feeble reed, unable to overcome the terrors of Abigail’s past. Even if he persuaded her to try again, who was to say the outcome would be any different?
Yet how was he to accept her jilting, when she got around to it, without feeling like an utter cad?
When Jeremy joined the family group shortly after their luncheon, declining any offer of belated food himself, the Earl and Captain had made common cause. The two men might be very different in all other respects, but they were firmly united in their determination to have Abigail and him marry as soon as possible. Speculation was already bandied regarding the likely hair and eye colour of their mutual grandchildren. There were suggestions of Special Licenses, and the Captain gave unsolicited advice regarding the best route for a lengthy wedding journey to the Continent, although Lady Cirrell maintained that some romantic retreat in England might do just as well. Mrs. Trevelyan strongly agreed with her – she had never held with travelling amongst all those unwashed, foreign heathens.
Abigail was a little listless and pale, but behaved naturally enough that nobody else noticed anything amiss. Jeremy wanted to go to her, hug her, take her away from all this obnoxious chatter; but he no longer had the right.
If the general conversation had been bad enough, worse was to follow. Captain Trevelyan indicated that he wanted private speech with his daughter’s betrothed.
He was within his rights, of course. Jeremy should have anticipated it. Had the Captain not been absent from London, Jeremy would have had to apply to him for permission to court Abigail. Did the Captain expect him to do so now, or did he merely want to give his blessing to the match? Surely all that talk of early weddings and grandchildren signified that he had no objection.
“So you want to marry my little Abigail,” Trevelyan said gruffly when they were alone in the library. “You seem a fine young man, but will you be able to make her happy? She is not as radiant as she ought to be, so soon after entering into an engagement.”
Of course she was not. The man was lucky his daughter was still alive. Who was he to ask such questions, when he had been absent all this time? But he could not say any of that to Abigail’s father.
“How well do you know your daughter after being gone for most of her life, Sir? It is certainly not my aim to make Abigail unhappy; if it is in my power to achieve her happiness, I shall not be behindhand.”
As he spoke Jeremy felt like the worst kind of liar and fraud. He might resent the Captain, but in a flash he understood that his anger at the older man was merely a reflection of his much stronger self-disgust.
Abigail’s father did not appear altogether satisfied with his response. “That sounds rather tepid for a lover, Barton. She loves you; surely you must love her as well, or you would not have offered for? My Abigail is a darling, but not a great beauty or heiress. I was comforting myself with the certitude that she would be safe from superficial men for that very reason.”
“Abigail loves me? How can you know that, Sir, when you have just arrived?”
The Captain frowned. “She readily admitted it. It does not take a sage to see that there is some problem between the two of you, however. Whatever its nature, it is up to you to find a solution. By asking for my daughter’s hand you took on the responsibility to make and keep her happy, Barton. If you are not up to the challenge, or want to back out, say so at once rather than shilly-shallying like this.”
Jeremy forced himself not to take offense as he met the sharp, suspicious gaze of the older man. It was difficult to hold his stare, and only his anger at the situation enabled him to do so for several endless seconds.
“Abigail and I are both adults, and able to work out whatever issues there might be,” he said at last. “You may be assured that I only wish her well.”
The Captain’s frown only deepened. “If that is all – if you do not love her – then I must retract my agreement to this engagement. An agreement you did not seek before announcing the fact in the papers, I note.”
Jeremy stared at the man incredulously. Anyone else would have been overjoyed at the excellent match his daughter had achieved, and let it go at that. Love was something for sentimental novels, not real life. Though if Abigail had told her father she loved him… could it be true?
“Of course I love Abigail,” Jeremy growled. Was he lying? He’d have to consider it later. “I simply don’t care to broadcast my emotions unnecessarily.”
“Well then, my advice is to tell her so, if you haven’t yet. If you love each other, any other difficulties should prove manageable.”
Much the fellow knew. He might be competent to deal with naval battles, but what could Abigail’s father know of infertility, or that dreadful panic that had come over Abigail last night? He would always remember her look of blind terror, caused by him. He never wanted to see that again. And yet… it was just as irksome to leave the matter there, to accept defeat as definite.
“I shall
think upon your words, Captain,” he said stiffly. “And in the meantime, I would be grateful if you did not badger Abigail about the wedding date. It is her prerogative as the bride to set it.”
“That sounds almost as though you did not want an early date.” The Captain still sounded suspicious.
“No, I just want her to be left in peace. She has already had a difficult enough time.”
The Captain’s eyes turned flinty once more. “In what way?”
“It is not for me to tell you, but when she was living with your wife she was not treated with the respect and delicacy she deserves. I fully understood why she elected to live elsewhere when the opportunity offered.” Though that was the least of the problems poor Abigail had faced in her father’s absence.
“Do you speak from what Abigail told you, or from personal knowledge?” Meeting the Captain’s frosty glare, Jeremy was glad he was not one of the man’s subalterns.
“Abigail is not the kind to complain. I am partly relying on my sister Susan’s observations; she is Abigail’s close friend, as you may be aware.” He noted with remote satisfaction that the Captain was looking more thoughtful. Let him tend to the problems in his own family.
After taking his leave of Captain Trevelyan Jeremy went out into the gardens, walking at a fast pace. He needed movement, fresh air, but above all, a chance to order his thoughts and feelings.
After the first hour of pacing he grew conscious of hunger pangs, but impatiently shoved them aside, just as he had put his vehement self-reproaches aside as unhelpful. He needed solutions, and to understand what was making him so miserable and guilty. His intentions had been good all along, but somewhere he had stepped wrong. How could he retrace his path, and redress whatever hurt he had caused?
No matter how unflattering, he had to see himself, his motives and actions the way a critical outsider would. Without self-indulgence or illusions.
Barnaby had been trying to tell him all along, he realised. He simply had not been ready to listen.
To offer for any female in order to comply with the earl’s ultimatum meant he would be building his marriage on a faulty foundation. His wife’s welfare and happiness had to come first. He never should have accepted Abigail’s conditions. Any marriage would founder without unconditional acceptance of each other as its bedrock. Worse, he had let her think he only wanted her because she was conveniently at hand when he needed to marry.
Abigail worried about her capacity for childbearing – but no couple knew for sure if they would be blessed with children. His mistake was to agree that Abigail was unfit for marriage, somehow unworthy, unless a specialist pronounced her still fertile.
What did these quacks know, anyway? Examples of medical mistakes and errors of judgement were legion.
Would he have offered for her, had he been aware of those doubts? He could not say for certain. His father of course would have warned him away from Abigail, would even now urgently press him to get out of his commitment if he had the slightest inkling of the truth.
The Earl must never know.
What his father wanted or would have wanted was irrelevant at this point. However incomplete or brief, Jeremy had had carnal knowledge of Abigail Trevelyan and was honour bound to marry her, all else be damned. If he did not insist on making the marriage a real one, committing to his woman above all other considerations – then he was no better than that villain Fenton, who had nearly destroyed her already.
He breathed deeply. The air was damp from an earlier rain. He was a good hour’s walk from the house.
He would have to convince Abigail to go marry him with persuasion, logic, – if she really loved him that emotion should also work in his favour. But likely she had only said that to appease the Captain’s probing; they both were already telling so many untruths, though mostly by omission.
The deepest secrets could not be allowed to come out publicly, but he would not tell one more lie than absolutely necessary from now on.
You claimed to love Abigail, when you talked to her father, his conscience whispered.
Had it been a lie? He was fonder of her than of any other female he had ever considered wedding. He enjoyed Abigail’s company, liked talking to her, and had taken pleasure in making love to her, at least until the moment of her sudden freezing. That had been a jolt, a shock to both of them, but with patience – different location, different positions – he did not despair of overcoming her terrors. He could not afford to despair, or he was condemning himself to an uncomfortably chaste future. He had no desire to live like a monk, whether his efforts resulted in offspring or not.
He could not say with certainty that he did not love Abigail, but neither was he sure that his warm affection amounted to love as it was generally understood by romantic persons. Jeremy felt no passionate desire to write sonnets to Abigail’s locks – though her hair was soft and pretty – or serenade her, or any of that rot. He just wanted to chase that unhappiness from her blue eyes, and teach her to enjoy his lovemaking. And take her far away from all those gossips and meddling family members.
Whether that was love or not, it would have to do. All other obligations – towards Susan, who must be shielded from Fenton’s posthumous malice, his father’s dynastic ambitions or the Captain – had to come after his duty to Abigail.
He felt better when he returned to the house in the late afternoon, well enough to heed the grumblings of his stomach at last and detour to the kitchens for a substantial snack, though dinner was only three hours away.
Now he only needed to convince Abigail that they must go forward with the marriage. That might be hard work; she could be very stubborn. But he would not give up so easily this time.
Did she really love him? How could he find out if it was true? Would she admit it, if he asked her point-blank? That might be awkward, given how they had parted the previous night.
But the Captain was right on one point – they needed to talk frankly to each other. No matter how difficult and embarrassing. It would not feel nearly so awkward if they did not care; that consideration gave him a spark of hope.
Chapter 23
Abigail had little appetite at dinner, though her headache had long abated. She was seated next to Jeremy, and was relieved that the proximity of Lady Cirrell and Lord Branscombe, her father and Mrs. Trevelyan precluded anything but small talk.
Jeremy looked surprisingly resolute and calm. He had no trouble meeting her gaze – of course not; all the fuss, the stupid behaviour, the nonsense had been caused by her. He would have dined with former lovers on other occasions – lovers who could offer him all that she could not.
Her stepmother’s gushing compliments towards Lord Branscombe, Lady Cirrell and Jeremy were met with more politeness than they deserved. Mrs. Trevelyan only subsided after her husband had curtly interrupted her twice.
Given how unequal their match was for a man of Jeremy’s expectations and attractions, it was surprising how kindly everyone behaved towards Abigail. They would be all the more angry and disappointed when she jilted their precious son and nephew. It would be utterly embarrassing. What possible reason could she give, that would not make her appear a capricious nitwit? Well, she still had a few weeks to ponder the matter.
“Have you thought of suing that paper?” her father asked Jeremy, who had just described the way his name had been linked with Milla’s. Wise of him to explain it now, before the Captain could hear all about the matter from other, less well-intentioned sources.
“Of course, but that hardly ever answers. The public always assumes there is no smoke without fire, that at least part of the accusation must be justified.”
“Just so.” Lord Branscombe agreed. “Though it does mean that the vile scribblers remain unpunished, and go on to ever greater lengths of iniquity.”
“Isn’t there any way to hurt the paper or journalist in their pocketbooks, other than by a lawsuit?” Abigail suggested. She had not forgiven the paper for putting Milla and Jeremy in such an invidiou
s position.
“Maybe. They tend to be undercapitalised,” Jeremy said thoughtfully. “I shall look into it. I confess it would give me pleasure to see the fellows responsible for that slander languishing in the Fleet for a time.”
“Yes,” the Captain said. “It is the least that they deserve for such malice. Not that it is an unusual fate. Even some of my friends have had to stay there during a temporary embarrassment.”
Something about the phrase niggled at Abigail’s memory. Who else had spoken of temporary embarrassments recently? Not spoken, written. That was what Chatteris had said in his very first missive, the one she had nearly thrown into the fire back in Dorset. Could it be that he had not received the document earlier because he had been languishing in jail for debt?
She would have to suggest the possibility to Jeremy, or Barnaby when she was back in town. Was there a list of people who had been imprisoned and recently released? Jeremy might know.
“You are silent, Abigail,” her father said. “Is anything the matter?” He looked from her face to Jeremy’s.
“No, I was merely chasing a fleeting thought. I tend to do that at the most inappropriate moments.”
Jeremy smiled at her. “I know. It is endearing.” He was a far better actor than she, to be able to look so carefree at a time like this.
“Is it anything you can share with us?” Lady Cirrell asked.
“Only with Jeremy, and later.”
They accepted that, and the conversation turned to other subjects. Abigail made an effort to contribute the occasional remark, as did Jeremy, who also seemed a little distracted. He was watching her intently, as though trying to divine the colour of her corset; now where had that absurd comparison come from? She recalled the caresses of the previous night and felt hot colour shoot into her cheeks. Jeremy winked at her, and she gaped at him. How could he see any levity in their situation?
Jeremy even participated with all appearance of seriousness in a renewed discussion of wedding venues, though he turned the subject after a short time, with a sympathetic glance at her face. He must have ice water in his veins, to dissimulate so successfully. His sister Susan could also do so when needed; it had to be one of those qualities the aristocracy bred for, like size and superciliousness.