by Nicole Byrd
When she opened her eyes at last, she looked at him with concern. “But what about you?” she whispered.
“I’m all right, my sweet. Another time, when we have a more private space,” he told her, grinning ruefully. “At least I could make you happy.”
He seemed sincere, so she put away her concern. It hadn’t occurred to her that it could be done like this. So many things to learn, Maddie thought. She wished that they could have years together to teach them to each other.
Afraid that Thomas might come out of the house, she reluctantly sat back beside the viscount, and he sat with his arm about her. They talked in low voices.
“Do you also enjoy the garden, as your mother did?” Adrian asked her, as they gazed over the late-flowering plants.
She looked over the flower beds. “I’m afraid I lack time to give them the care they deserve. They are not what they once where, as my father pointed out.”
He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers gently. “I know that you work very hard, Madeline, and you could not put more effort into aiding your father, inside and outside the house. You are a dutiful daughter.”
Feeling a sudden rush of renewed anxiety, Maddie stared up into his face. “You do understand why I feel I cannot leave him, Adrian? He could not cope on his own, and with only two elderly servants to aid him. But even if there were more, I could not leave him to suffer a lonely existence with only servants around him.”
“I know,” the viscount said, his voice tender as he looked down at her. “You have a very kind heart, my dear, and also a spirit—and a body—meant for love. I honor you for it.”
“But the more I know you and the more time we spend together…” she tried to tell him. “I wish that we—that I…” If we had had a chance for a real marriage, she thought as she held his hand tightly. If you were not already cursed…
She could not go, and he could not stay. How could they find a way to keep their love alive, to have time to nurture it, to have the time to delight in it?
“I don’t want to lose you,” she murmured. He tightened his grip on her hand, but didn’t answer.
The air was cool but pleasant, and with his arm around her shoulders, the familiar feel of the bench beneath them, the bronze and gold and white of the autumn flowers and the glory of the last leaves on the trees making a pleasing show all around them, and the gilded rays of the sunlight, it was a golden hour, and she wished she could hold on to it forever.
If she concentrated, could she keep them inside this bubble of time—stop the clock’s clicking hand? Keep all evils away?
But most of the leaves had already fallen; the flowers were already dropping their petals, one by one. It seemed to Maddie that she could almost see one white petal detach itself and drift away in the breeze.
How could she slow—no, stop—time?
She did not want him to leave—she did not wish for Adrian to go away—she knew suddenly that he had captured her heart—she had no doubt at all.
Adrian had taught her not just passion, but love. She had fallen in love when she had least expected it. The convenient marriage, the contract for the sake of propriety, had transformed into an emotion that stirred her to the depths of her soul, and the sudden illness that had trapped her in the middle of a stormy night might turn out to be the dearest blessing of her life.
She lay her head against his chest where she could hear the comforting beat of his heart—his vigor, his vitality, the reassurance that he was here, now—and felt him wrap his arms about her.
Stay, she thought, stay. Dear Lord, ward off all ills.
If only they possessed some old wizardry—a magic wand, or a fairy godmother who would grant a deepest wish—anything that would guarantee a boon.
But the sunlight was already changing its angle. The air was cooling, and she heard a call as someone came up the path in front of the house. It was Felicity, come to chaperone as they had another dinner party to attend tonight.
Maddie raised her head, and they had to slip apart.
“I begin to see the many advantages of marriage,” the viscount muttered. “Oh, for the privilege of the shut door and the right to place all the world outside!”
She gave him a reluctant grin, then went to welcome their guest.
That night when they were ready to leave, Felicity wore her remade lavender gown and carried her new reticule and an Italian fan and looked very fine; even Maddie’s papa commented, which made their guest turn pink.
Maddie was delighted to see how pleased her friend was to have a new outfit to enjoy. She found that her own new gowns from the dressmaker in Ripon were a great lift to her spirits, especially when with every dinner party, she felt as if she faced another gauntlet to run.
She admitted as much to the viscount when she met him on the landing upstairs before they went down.
“Then say no,” he told her at once. “Send your excuses. We do not have to indulge these provincial hostesses who think they are so lofty in their entertaining. I would not have you be distressed, Madeline!”
“But I will not have them thinking they have bested me, either, Adrian,” she pointed out, her tone even. “They are only a minor annoyance, really.” Which was not quite true, but they were and would continue to be neighbors, and she would have to live here after the viscount had departed again, which was too painful to discuss out loud. At least her father did not know how she was distressed by some of her more vindictive neighbors’ petty attacks.
To her chagrin, the first person she saw when they walked into the hostess’s home tonight was her least favorite neighbor, Mrs. Masham. Maddie knew just who would lead the charge of belittling observations, disguised as they might be as kindly inquiries.
The matron didn’t even wait till the ladies were alone to start her commentary. “I’m so glad you are quite recovered, Miss Applegate,” Mrs. Masham said, in her usual sharp tones. “Since you were too ill to come to my dinner party last week.”
“We are all happy that Miss Applegate has recovered,” the viscount agreed, his tone amiable. “She had another of her headaches, which as you know, make her totally unable to function.”
“As you know, at least, since it led to the two of you spending the night alone in the woods—but, dear me, how clumsy of me to bring up such a subject,” Mrs. Masham retorted, fanning herself as if disconcerted, though her eyes looked as hard as always.
Adrian met her suggestive stare with an innocent look of his own. “Just so.”
Maddie had to swallow a slightly hysterical giggle.
“All of Miss Applegate’s friends are distressed by her sad tendency toward these unfortunate headaches, and her inability to control their timing,” Felicity added. “Tell us how your dinner party went, Mrs. Masham. I’m sure you are a notable hostess?”
She allowed her remark to end on just a hint of a question mark, and that prompted the other woman to plunge into an indignant description of her party and how delicious were her many dishes and how lively her dinner conversation and how spirited her playing at the pianoforte when she entertained her guests afterwards (which made Maddie reflect that missing such a “treat” was almost worth her suffering).
“I suppose it’s just as well that the two of you will be married soon. This coming Sunday will be the third reading of the banns, if I am counting correctly, will it not?” their inquisitioner demanded.
“I believe your counting skills are quite adequate,” Adrian murmured.
This time Maddie did giggle.
“What was that?”
“Ah,” their current hostess, a plump, good-natured lady, Mrs. Fritzwell, jumped courageously into the fray. “I remember when my own banns were read. That excited, I was, and a bit worried, too, that we would not get my wedding dress finished in time. I supposed you are sewing madly, Miss Applegate?”
“Oh, yes,” Maddie agreed. “Although we have made a trip into Ripon to a dressmaker there, which will aid in the effort considerably.”
&nbs
p; “Indeed.” Their hostess looked impressed. “Now that is good news. You will not be so anxious. I used to dream that skeins of thread and bolts of silk were chasing me around the bed. Not the best way to start off one’s married life, I can tell you.” She turned quite innocently to gaze toward the viscount, who had suddenly put on a blank expression.
Maddie was trying hard not to laugh once more. “No, indeed, how unfortunate.”
“No, however, dear Mr. Fritzwell assured me that he would wed me in my petticoat, if necessary, didn’t you, my dear?” Their hostess looked fondly at her husband.
He had been discussing last week’s shooting with a couple of male guests and glanced up with an absent expression. “Right you are, old thing.” He turned back to the men. “A splendid rack, twelve points, at the least.”
“Such a romantic, he is,” his wife concluded.
“After the third reading, you can wed any morning you choose,” Mrs. Masham continued, like a dog that will not let go of a bone, “a quiet ceremony is no doubt most appropriate under the circumstances.”
“On the contrary,” the viscount said, his tone quite pleasant, and his smile unblemished, although Maddie at least could make out the adversarial gleam in his eyes. “It will not be quiet at all. In fact, I take the opportunity forthwith to invite you all to come and witness our ceremony.”
“You do?” she murmured to her fiancé, but he simply smiled at her.
“Of course, should not all your friends be a party to our happiness?” he murmured back.
And such friends they were, too, she thought. But she could see he was too exasperated at the annoying Mrs. Masham to take back his blanket invitation, even if he could without being impossibly rude. Oh, well, she didn’t mind. In fact, the whole world could come and see them wed—the blazing joy she would be feeling might flash across the whole orb itself, outshine the sun and blind the heavens!
Except, if it meant that the viscount would leave, would feel compelled to continue his wanderings in order to protect her from…no, she mustn’t think about that just now.
Mrs. Masham had a sour expression on her face. She turned to locate Mr. Masham, who was standing in the corner of the room drinking a large glass of wine, and crooked a finger to summon him. He frowned and affected not to see her signal.
His hairline was receding, and his stomach expanding, Maddie noted. And he had a stain on his waistcoat. Her sister Juliana, who had once been courted by Masham, would be more than happy that she had not seriously considered his suit; Maddie would have to remember to mention that in her next letter. Not that Juliana’s husband was not already a thousand times more preferable in every respect.
They were called in to dinner, and Maddie gave Adrian a quick smile before they had to separate. “You are a magnificent champion, my lord,” she said, keeping her tone formal. “Thank you.”
“Thank you, my lady,” he responded, his own tone as stately.
She laughed. “I am not your lady yet.”
“Perhaps not to the rest of the world,” he interjected. “But in my heart, you are.”
This sent her into the dining room in such a good mood that she hardly minded that her dinner partner on one side was over ninety and spent the meal extolling the virtues of Dr. AllGood’s Miraculous Lotion for Arthritic Pain and her partner on the other just out of the schoolroom and too shy to speak at all, keeping his face almost in his plate.
No one monopolized the conversation and took over the table, and no one—to her relief—brought up the topic of the recent war.
When the ladies withdrew, leaving the men to their wine and conversation, she had Felicity by her side, so even with the poisonous Mrs. Masham among the women, Maddie did not feel alone.
She was not even dismayed when the waspish matron made a point of sitting down across from her. Happily, Felicity had taken the chair beside her, so Maddie could not be completely ambushed. She kept thinking in terms of savage peoples, Maddie thought, hiding a grin. But then Mrs. Masham, despite her new gown with its latest most fashionable trim, which she spent the first ten minutes telling everyone in the room about, had the most barbaric heart of anyone here.
“I suppose you will soon outshine us all, will you not, Miss Applegate?” The barbarian herself suddenly turned back to Maddie, who jumped slightly. She had made the mistake of taking her attention away from her formidable neighbor.
“Pardon me?”
“When you become Viscountess Weller?” another lady explained, her tone arch.
“Yes, indeed. I’m sure your clothing allowance will be much increased,” Mrs. Masham almost purred. “Why, if such a thought had occurred to me, I might have gotten lost in the wood on a stormy night myself.”
The silence in the room was suddenly tense.
Maddie raised her brows. This was a truly nasty cut—to suggest that she would deliberately fake her illness in order to trap the viscount into marriage and thus improve her standard of living, enrich her place in life.
For a moment, she thought she was literally seeing red. She opened her mouth to blast this insufferable woman—
“Money is not everything,” another voice, cool and in command, cut in. It was Felicity, sounding detached and hardly interested. “Taste is even more crucial. For example, that color of blue in your oh-so-fashionable trim does not quite clash with the sea green in your gown, and I would not be so rude to point it out if it did, but if so, it would, of course, quite ruin the effect of your lovely and I’m sure quite costly new gown. But it does go to show that having sufficient funds does not, in itself, guarantee the final effect of one’s couture.”
“My outfit is perfectly matched!” Mrs. Masham snapped.
“Of course it is,” Felicity agreed, her tone tranquil.
The other ladies simply watched, their expressions exhibiting every emotion from fascination to horror.
Maddie, quite forgotten, had the chance to pull herself together before she made a total fool of herself. To bite the odious woman’s head off, as much as she longed to do it, would only convince Mrs. Masham, and many of the others, that the charges might have some truth in them. She had to look unmoved, perhaps even amused. Thank goodness for Felicity. Maddie drew a calming breath.
Mrs. Masham sputtered a bit more about her dressmaker and how dear were her prices, and how perfect her feel for color and hue and fashion. No one had the inclination to argue. When at last she spun to a halt, Felicity spoke again.
“Has anyone else seen more evidence of that band of gypsies still lingering in the neighborhood?”
This topic brought immediate response.
“Oh, my, yes,” their hostess answered, fluttering her fan and looking relieved at the change in subject. “They stole a lamb from one of Mr. Fritzwell’s tenants, and the poor man was quite agitated, as well he might be.”
“They snatched a whole day’s worth of clean wash from behind my gardener’s cottage, clothesline and all!” another lady said.
“And they not only stripped my best cherry tree of all its fruit but dug out the tree,” another lady said, putting down her teacup so abruptly that it clattered. “What on earth they will do with it, I cannot think, as everyone knows they never settle, but only wander about.”
“Oh, they’ll sell it, the next village they come to,” another woman said darkly. “But you’ll never see it again.”
The other ladies nodded, and as more complaints were exchanged, Maddie said quietly to Felicity, “Have you had anything stolen, Felicity?”
Her friend shook her head. “But I’ve seen footprints around my cottage. And this morning when I woke, I thought I saw a man staring into my cottage window.”
“Oh, my dear! How alarming,” Maddie said.
Felicity looked grim. “I wasn’t sure, at first, if it was only part of my dream—I had just opened my eyes. But later, I went outside and saw footprints in the dirt beneath the window, and I’m sure they are not mine; the size is wrong, for one thing.” She shivered. �
�It does make one a bit—well, they can be a rough lot. One hears about attacks that are most disconcerting.”
“You will certainly stay with us tonight,” Maddie told her. “And perhaps you should stay for a while, till we know that this band is gone out of the neighborhood.”
Here she was worried about sharp-tongued gossips, and Felicity was living alone in an isolated cottage, subject to wandering vandals, who might be even more dangerous than they knew, Maddie thought.
The men were joining them now, and their hostess was making up card tables. After a few rounds of cards, the party broke up, and Maddie was happy enough to say her farewells.
In the carriage ride home, they could talk softly, and when they reached home, she found her father still up. She told him about the gypsies and their transgressions, and he agreed at once that Felicity should remain with them for the time being.
“As long as you like,” he added. “You are certainly not safe down that isolated lane all on your own.”
Felicity’s smile was tremulous. “You’re very kind,” she said, her voice husky.
“You have enough with you for tonight, I think,” Maddie said. “Tomorrow, Thomas and I will go with you to help bring back what you need for a longer stay.”
Felicity gave her an impulsive hug, then Maddie showed her upstairs to the guest chamber next to the viscount’s room. If there was a drawback to having another guest, Maddie thought, it was that it made it more difficult—or even impossible—to slip into the viscount’s room for more forbidden trysts. But perhaps having a full-time chaperone would remind Maddie that she must behave.
Too bad that behaving properly was not at all what she wished to do!
She saw Adrian watching her from his doorway and knew from his impish grin that he was almost certainly reading her thoughts.
“Are you sorry?” she paused to whisper to him as Felicity went inside and closed her bedroom door.