The Penniless Bride

by Nicola Cornick

  Rob smiled wryly. He could do with some luck himself but he did not fancy embracing a handsome chimney sweep, not even for his father’s fortune.

  The crowd parted a little and Rob saw that the sweep had evidently brought his wife with him, for a young girl was standing a little way apart. She was dressed in the traditional costume of black fitted jacket and stiff flared skirt. The skirt was a little short, showing a pair of very neat ankles in black boots, and the jacket was tight and framed a very shapely figure. She had jet-black hair, piled up on her head and confined within a black net, on which jet beads glinted in the sunlight. Her skin was translucently pale and she had wide-set eyes in an oval face. She was very pretty.

  She turned her head slightly, as though aware that someone was watching her, and her eyes met Rob’s. He felt slightly winded, as though someone had hit him hard in the stomach. He saw that her eyes were very a deep violet blue. She did not look away from him, but held his gaze with just a hint of haughty composure.

  Rob found himself moving forward without conscious thought. He brushed past the crowd as though they were not there, completely ignoring the greeting that someone called out to him.

  He reached the sweep’s girl in four strides. She was small. The top of her head was level with his shoulder and she had to tilt her face up to look at him. She was looking at him now, and he could see that her composure was ever so slightly shaken. She was looking at him as though she was not at all certain what he might do next.

  Rob fumbled in his pocket and produced a guinea. The summer sun struck sparks off the gold.

  ‘I need some good fortune,’ he said. ‘I will trade you this guinea for one kiss. What do you say?’

  Jemima had been watching Jack with the bride, cynically reflecting that the little henwit looked more in love with her brother than she did with her bridegroom. She loathed these occasions, with the snobbish, twittering, aristocratic crowds and her father exuding bonhomie and playing the part of fulsome master sweep to perfection. It was all so false. The reality of a sweep’s life was choking soot and roasting heat; calloused feet, bleeding elbows, lungs full of dust, cold hard floors and bone-aching tiredness. It was a world away from this perfumed throng. But they would never want to know about it. They paid for the fiction and her father would do anything for money.

  Suddenly she felt a prickle along her skin, a shiver of awareness. Someone was watching her. She turned her head very slowly.

  A man was standing on the edge of the crowd. He was quite tall, though not as broad as Jack, and he had thick chestnut-coloured hair, ruffled by the breeze. He had a hard, handsome face, tanned and a little grave in repose.

  Jemima’s stomach did a little flip. She realised that she was staring and that the man had evidently taken this as some kind of encouragement, for he was now cutting a path towards her through the wedding crowd. She saw him brush past an acquaintance, who accosted him and then fell back, looking startled to be ignored. As the man drew close Jemima felt hot and then cold, unable to move away. He reached her side in five strides.

  Instinctively she tilted up her face to look into his. He was handsome in the same devil-may-care way as so many young noblemen—arrogant, accustomed to command. It was an attitude she disliked intensely.

  His eyes were a very dark brown and they contained a warmth deep inside. His mouth was firm and turned up at the corners slightly, as though he smiled often. When he did smile, as now, it drove a very attractive crease down his cheek.

  He was holding a guinea in his hand.

  ‘I need some good fortune,’ he said, quite as though he were ordering a punnet of strawberries. ‘I will trade you this guinea for one kiss. What do you say?’

  Jemima almost gave him a set-down. Then she saw that her father was watching, a calculating look in his eye as his gaze rested on the coin. She took the guinea and bit on it, conjuring up the saucy look that was all part of the act.

  ‘The real yellowboy,’ she said, adopting the chimney-sweep patois of her childhood. ‘An’ I reckon you must be a real gennelman, sir.’

  She tossed the guinea in the air, before slipping it into her pocket.

  The gentleman looked amused. The laughter deepened in his eyes and Jemima felt a tingle down to her toes.

  ‘I assure you that both of us are genuine,’ he said. ‘I would not cheat you.’

  His voice was smooth and warm as the sun on the stones beneath her feet. Jemima felt as though they were rocking very slightly. She was not entirely sure what was wrong with her.

  ‘A’ right then.’ Her own voice came out slightly husky. ‘One kiss for good luck.’

  She offered her cheek to him, expecting the customary peck. Instead he bent his head and his lips took hers lightly, then with an insistence that made the blood sing through her veins.

  He stepped back and Jemima opened her eyes again, blinking as his own laughing gaze came into focus.

  ‘That will have to do, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I have no wish to offend your husband.’

  Jemima followed his gaze. She felt shaken, a little off balance. ‘That’s not my husband,’ she said. ‘That’s my brother, Jack.’

  She realised her mistake a second later, when she saw the wicked light leap into the gentleman’s eyes.

  ‘In that case I’ll have my money’s worth…’

  This second kiss was so thorough it made her head spin. Sensuous, slow and deep, it swept her away. Sensation burned through her body. Her hands came up to clutch at his jacket, then slid around his neck to keep him close to her. She had forgotten where she was. The wedding, the crowd, the noise and colour of the street faded away to nothing. There was no reality except the stunning power of his kiss, the hardness of his body and the racing of her heart.

  Jemima was no sheltered innocent. She had grown up on the streets and had no illusions about love or romance. As a child she had seen plenty of relationships between men and women contracted for every reason from lust through to money. Some had had the benefit of clergy, some had not. When she had gone to Mrs Montagu’s school the romantic sighs of her fellow pupils had made her laugh. They had swooned over the fashionable gentlemen and dreamed about the brothers of their friends. Jemima had held her own counsel but she had known that those selfsame girls would make good marriages because their families demanded it. A few might marry for love, and of those few some would fall out of love just as quickly as they had fallen into it.

  Jemima did not wish to marry Jim Veale, but it was not because she did not love him. That seemed almost an irrelevance to her. In her world, love played no part in marriage. Love made you vulnerable. She had seen that when she had seen Jack fall in love with Beth Rosser. After Beth had died and their child was taken away from him, Jack had gone very silent for months, and after that he had turned into the careless seducer who entranced the ladies now.

  Jemima had always thought that love was not for her. Yet despite these hard lessons she could suddenly see how one could be blinded by it. Suddenly she understood how it might be, in another world, another existence.

  The kiss eased a little; their lips clung and parted and Jemima pushed away from him, one hand against his chest. She could feel the hammering of his heart against her palm. Just for a moment his gaze reflected all the heat and excitement that she felt spinning inside of her. Then reality intruded. She was a chimney sweep’s daughter who was betrothed to another man and she was not prone to lose her head over a handsome gentleman.

  ‘You ask for a deal too much good luck, sir.’ Jemima had recovered herself. She spoke unthinkingly in the cut-glass tones that her seven years at Mrs Montagu’s school had taught her.

  She saw the gentleman’s eyes narrow. ‘And you are suddenly become a lady, mistress. How can that be?’

  Jemima hesitated, aware that she had given herself away comprehensively. Then a feminine voice said, ‘Robert, dearest! I am so glad that you were able to come today! But kissing a little chimney sweep’s girl?’ The lady offered a powder
ed cheek to Rob for a rather more chaste salutation. ‘Really! You never know what you might catch!’

  Jemima looked at her. The lady was about Jemima’s own age, with a thin, haughty face and a sneering expression. She was dressed in an over-decorated bridesmaid’s gown and had a head-dress of rampant roses. Jemima privately thought that she looked as though she had fallen into a flower cart.

  ‘Good morning, Cousin Augusta.’ There was a note in the gentleman’s voice that made Jemima glance at him quickly. His face had tightened with something that looked like anger but Jemima did not wait to hear his response. She took several steps backwards until she felt Jack’s reassuring presence at her elbow.

  ‘Are you quite well, Jem?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jemima pulled herself together. ‘Yes, thank you, Jack.’

  ‘I saw you with the flash cove,’ Jack said, an edge to his voice. ‘Want me to sort him out for you?’

  ‘No!’ Jemima grabbed his sleeve. ‘No harm done.’

  She glanced back at the gentleman. He was still talking to his cousin, but he was looking over Augusta’s head at her. There was a faint hint of concern in his eyes. It made Jemima feel strange.

  She turned away. ‘Let’s be going, Jack. I’ve had enough, and Father has his money…’

  It was true. Alfred Jewell’s pockets bulged and he was cheerfully jangling the coins. The black cat, Sooty, was perched on his shoulder, surveying the wedding guests with a disdainful air as he washed his paws.

  Jemima slipped her hand through Jack’s arm and resisted a last glance over her shoulder at the gentleman. She could feel the outline of the guinea against the lining of her jacket and after a moment she slid her other hand into the pocket, rubbing her fingers over the hard edge of the coin.

  A guinea for a kiss from a little sweep’s girl…It would be foolish to think of their encounter as anything more than that. Love was a foolish extravagance after all.

  ‘Come on,’ Jack said, pressing her arm comfortingly. ‘I’ll stand you some spiced gingerbread from Sal Stanton’s stall.’

  ‘You’re on,’ Jemima said.

  Alfred Jewell had other ideas, however. As they turned to leave, he came bustling up, Sooty clinging on to his shoulder by virtue of digging his claws into the thick material of his black coat.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘To the gingerbread stall,’ Jack said. There was a hint of insolence in his tone, as so often when his father challenged him. The older Jack got, the more they clashed. One day, Jemima thought, there would be an almighty disagreement…

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Jewell said, his face reddening angrily. ‘We’re booked for the whole day. Wedding breakfast and dancing to follow. You’re to dance with the bride, Jack.’

  Jack sighed heavily. ‘Won’t be eating with the nobs, will we?’

  ‘Of course not!’ his father snapped. ‘We eat with the servants in the kitchen.’

  ‘Just so long as we know our place,’ Jack muttered, under his breath. He took Jemima’s arm again. ‘Come along, sis. Time to put on the act again.’

  Augusta Selborne had wandered off to talk to some of the other guests, leaving Rob feeling irritable and on edge. If anything had confirmed him in his reluctance to marry her it was that short encounter. Augusta had been trying to charm him, but she had marked her own card from the moment that she had insulted the sweep’s girl. Rob had felt a protective anger stronger than anything he had ever experienced before. Augusta’s slights were often poisonous, but over the years he had grown to ignore them. This time, though, they had got straight through to him. He told himself that it was because he had been away and had forgotten just how sharp Augusta could be.

  He looked around for the chimney-sweep girl, but she had gone. It had been particularly unkind of Augusta to make a target of a tradesman’s daughter who could not defend herself. The girl had been very sweet as well. She had smelled of apricots and tasted of honey…Rob shifted slightly, telling himself not to be a fool. He was in the market for a wife, not a mistress, and it was not his style to go around buying kisses from anyone. He was not entirely sure what had come over him.

  He thought that the girl must be a clever mimic to be able to ape a lady’s accent so accurately. That had thrown him. That and the potent sweetness of the kiss. His mind had been so addled that he had not even asked her name.

  He bent down and picked up one of the trade cards that had fallen into the gutter with the confetti thrown over the bride. The card was the size of a handbill, embossed on expensive paper, and bore a fine Royal coat of arms.

  ‘Alfred Jewell, Chimney Sweeper and Night man, No. 3 Great Portland Street’ was inscribed with many flourishes. Rob smiled slightly. Clearly Mr Jewell was a High Master of the trade and knew the value of advertising. He folded the bill and tucked it absentmindedly in his pocket. Should he ever need a chimney sweep he would know where to find one. And should he want to find the girl…He shook his head slightly. That was about the last thing he should be thinking of at the moment. He needed a wife. And he was no closer to finding one.

  Ferdie and Bertie came up to him. Ferdie clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Looking glum, Rob. Not surprised, if Augusta’s been trying to charm you. Mama has placed you next to her for the wedding breakfast, I’m afraid.’

  Rob grimaced. The attractions of his club suddenly seemed very strong. Then he remembered the chimney-sweep’s daughter. Perhaps she would be dancing at the wedding. Perhaps he should not seek her out. And perhaps he would do so anyway.

  It was late when Jemima managed to escape the dancing and slip outside into the cool of the evening. The feasting had gone on long into the afternoon, but she and Jack had sat around twiddling their thumbs as they waited to be summoned to join in the dancing. Jemima reflected that her father must have been well paid indeed to put his business aside for a full day at the whim of some lord. At some point the beleaguered servants had managed to feed them on baked potatoes and stew between dashing out to the marquee to keep the wedding guests well supplied with food and drink. Eventually the dancing had started and Jemima had found herself passed from gentleman to gentleman, rather like a well-used bottle of port. She hated it. There had been nothing overtly suggestive in their behaviour, just the odd innuendo and some hands that strayed with rather too much familiarity. But she was supposed to accept it all with a saucy smile for the sake of the guineas and notes that were stuffed down the bodice of her gown. Her father was watching her, his black eyes hard and calculating. Jack had practically disappeared, besieged by a group of eager ladies vying for his hand in the dance, chief amongst them a ravaged-looking widow in plunging blue silk.

  Outside it was cold, with the promise of autumn in the mist that was creeping up from the river. Jemima walked slowly down the path that led away from the house. The music tinkled in the background. Jemima hummed a strain of music under her breath: ‘A north country maid up to London had strayed although with her nature it did not agree…’

  There were flambeaux lighting the way, but the gardens were empty. She paused by a stand of tall oaks. The ground beneath her feet was thick with fallen leaves that crackled as she walked.

  ‘Taking the air, mistress?’

  Jemima gasped. She had not been aware that she was sharing the gardens with any of the guests. She recognised the voice at once. It was the lazy, amused tones of the man who had kissed her outside the church. Robert Selborne. The Earl of Selborne, the bride’s cousin. During the wedding breakfast, Jemima had heard all the gossip about the Earl—how he was but recently come in to his title and it was rumoured he was looking to settle down; how he had been estranged from his father because of his insistence on joining the army; how he had covered himself in glory and that General Wellesley himself spoke highly of him. The ladies thought him dashing but a little distant. He did not flirt and it was said that his only love was Delaval, the family estate in Oxfordshire.

  Jemima had seen him earlier at the wedding feast, but he h
ad not been dancing. A small part of her had been disappointed. Nor had he been looking at her—at least not when Jemima had cast a covert glance or two in his direction.

  She saw his shadow now, dark against the paling sky. He had turned towards her and he was smiling. Common sense prompted her to leave, but instinct made her want to stay. She was drawn to this man’s company in a way she did not understand, but she knew she had to fight the impulse. She turned to go.

  ‘Excuse me, my lord. I had no notion there was anyone else here—’

  ‘Do not leave on my account,’ Rob Selborne said. Jemima saw him tilt a bottle to his lips. ‘I am merely standing here and admiring the view. I have been away and had forgot how beautiful it was.’

  The view was indeed very fine. The Selborne house stood on a slight rise above the river and the streets tumbled away down to the water’s edge. The sun was setting in a blaze of gold, wreathed in the city’s habitual curtain of grey smoke.

  ‘Would you care for a drink?’ Rob asked. He held the bottle out to her.

  Jemima lifted the bottle and took a cautious sip. It was sweet and warming. ‘Port. Just right for a summer evening.’

  Rob laughed, turning back to contemplate the scene across the river. ‘I have seldom seen so fine a sight as London on a clear evening.’

  Jemima smiled. ‘It does indeed look very pretty.’

  “‘When a man is tired of London he is tired of life,”’ Rob said softly.

  “‘For there is in London everything that life can afford,”’ Jemima finished the quotation for him. She passed the port bottle back to him. ‘Are you tired of London, my lord?’