The Penniless Bride

by Nicola Cornick

‘I dare say,’ Jemima said calmly. ‘Then we may both sleep on the floor and leave the bed free for some other worthy traveller.’

  They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

  ‘I am going down to the parlour,’ Rob said. ‘I will be gone a while and when I return—please, Jemima—I would like to find you asleep. In the bed.’

  ‘Very well, Robert,’ Jemima said.

  Down in the parlour, Rob found the landlord newly washed and humming about his cleaning whilst a small fire glowed in the grate. Mr Hinton pushed a glass of brandy in his direction.

  ‘Take that on the house, my lord, with thanks to your lady wife for her ideas on chimney sweeping.’ He paused. ‘Had no idea you were married, my lord. From hereabouts, is she, your lady?’

  ‘No,’ Rob said. ‘Jemima is from London.’

  The landlord frowned. ‘Reminds me of someone…It’ll come back to me. Family in these parts, has she?’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ Rob said. He wondered how long he should leave it before he went back up to the chamber. The parlour was warm and the brandy was making him sleepy. On the other hand, the sight of Jemima in the four-poster bed was likely to awaken all the parts that the brandy had not yet reached. He would do better to drink himself into oblivion, or at least incapability.

  Two further brandies and an hour and a half later, Rob was tolerably certain that Jemima would be asleep. He crept up the stairs and opened the door of the chamber, letting out a sigh that was three-parts relief and one-part disappointment as he saw the sleeping figure in the bed. In fact, it looked as though there were already two people in the bed, for Jemima had put the monstrously fat bolster down the middle, leaving a space of approximately six inches for him to lie upon.

  She had also left one candle burning. By its light, Rob could see that his wife was almost entirely buried under the counterpane, leaving no part of her body visible. A good thing too. He averted his gaze from Jemima’s face and the sight of her lustrous hair spread across the pillow, a deep blue-black in the golden light. He quickly divested himself of his clothes, blew out the candle and slid into the tiny space allowed to him.

  After a minute he realised that he was holding his breath for no apparent reason. Beside him, or rather on the other side of the mountainous bolster, Jemima breathed with easy regularity. Rob felt vaguely affronted that she should have found it so easy to go to sleep. The bolster, whilst separating their bodies, did not divide the pillows and as Rob rolled over in a vain attempt to become more comfortable, he noticed that a strand of Jemima’s hair was resting on his pillow and tickling his nose. He touched it gently. It felt soft and smelled of the same jasmine scent that he had noticed earlier. He resisted the urge to push the bolster aside, pull Jemima into his arms and run his hands through the whole shimmering coal-black mass of her hair. He could see her face in the faint moonlight, pale and serene as a church effigy. Her lashes were dark against the alabaster smoothness of her cheek and her lips curved upwards in a slight smile. She looked eminently kissable. Rob’s body started to ache with frustrated passion.

  He lay on his side and stared at her face in the moonlight. She looked very young, with her tip-tilted nose and flyaway dark brows. She was very young, it was simply that her experience was so very different from that of most young ladies of her age…Yet despite that difference in upbringing he would be the veriest cad to wake her now and make love to her. He should treat her with more respect because of her background, not less. And besides, he could not make love to her and inherit the forty thousand pounds.

  Rob rolled over on to his back, eyes wide open, sleep receding even as he lay there. What was it that he had said to Jemima the previous day? That he only needed to know that he could not have something to want it very badly? Human nature, perhaps, and just at the moment he was damning his nature to hell. What he wanted was lying right beside him and he definitely could not have her.

  He started to count sheep in a vain effort to go to sleep, but when he reached four thousand nine hundred and seventy-three he gave up. Would it be so terrible to break the terms of the will? He could always lie to Churchward—tell him that the marriage was unconsummated. Except Jemima might become pregnant and that would be rather difficult to explain away…Angry with himself for even contemplating such a deceit, Rob rolled on to his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. It smelled of Jemima. Soft, sweet, cool, tempting…

  At the end of his tether, Rob flung himself over and tugged violently at the bolster.

  It did not budge. Rob pulled it again. There was a ripping sound. Jemima’s regular breathing paused and she sighed and turned away from him. Rob paused too. He wondered if she was really asleep.

  ‘Jemima,’ he whispered.

  There was no reply.

  ‘Jemima!’ he said, rather more loudly.

  Jemima made a tiny, inarticulate noise of deep sleep.

  ‘Jemima!’ Rob shouted.

  Someone banged on the wall of the adjoining chamber and some of the plaster crumbled off the wall in response. Jemima did not stir.

  Rob flung himself back down on the mattress and within a minute he had fallen asleep.

  He awoke as the dawn was streaking the sky and the pale summer light spilled into the bedchamber. He knew almost immediately that he was alone in the bed. He struggled on to one elbow and looked about him. Sure enough, Jemima’s side of the bed was empty. The bolster lay in virginal innocence down the middle of the bed, but the other side was bare.

  Rob sat up.

  Jemima was lying curled up like a small cat on her cloak by the fireplace. She looked tiny and fine-boned, the light glimmering on the fine lawn of her nightdress. Rob smiled. So she had ended sleeping up on the floor after all. Old habits died hard. He eased himself out of bed and scooped her up in his arms. Her head rested gently against his shoulder, her hair spilling softly against his bare chest. She felt very light in his arms. She also felt cold. Rob carried her over to the bed and laid her down. He was about to ease her back under the covers when he froze.

  In the pale morning light Jemima’s bare feet were clearly visible, small and delicate as the rest of her. Rob took one foot in his hand and ran his fingers over her skin. It was not soft to the touch. There were old scars, weals and the dark smudges of burns. Rob traced the line of one puckered welt along the side of her instep.

  For a long moment he stared at it, head bent. He had seen burns before, just as he had seen the evidence of beatings. And now he had seen both on Jemima’s body.

  Rob took a deep breath. He had known Jemima was a chimney sweep’s daughter. He had even known that she had climbed chimneys when she was child, but that had seemed a very long time ago, almost as though it had happened to a different person. Now it was brought home to him just how naïve he had been. A tiny, small-boned child of whatever sex was ideal for sending up a chimney-stack and a man like Alfred Jewell, poor as he had been at the beginning, would not scruple to use his own children to further his business. Jemima had been sent up chimneys and had burned her feet on smouldering soot and breathed in the thick, choking gas. She had struggled to survive in the claustrophobic smokestacks and had climbed for her life. His Jemima.

  Rob was overtaken by a wave of fury so immense that he wanted to smash something, anything, to smithereens. Preferably Alfred Jewell, but failing that anything would do. His anger was so intense that he felt physically sick and after it had gone he was left with nothing but pity and a vague surprise that he could feel so strongly for a girl he had known so short a time. A girl. A woman. Jemima. She was his responsibility now and he would guard that with his life.

  He wrenched the bolster from the centre of the bed, ignoring the tearing noise as it came away, climbed in beside his wife and drew her into his arms. She burrowed against him with the sleepy guilelessness of a child. Rob held her as delicately as if she was made of china and lay still as the dawn light strengthened in the room and Jemima slept on oblivious.

  When Jemima a
woke the room was full of sunshine and she was alone. She was also back in the bed and she knew that it must have been Rob who had put her there. She had woken in the night and had found it impossible to go back to sleep, so she had slipped out of the bed and gone over to the window. The town of Burford lay silent away to the east and beyond it the vast estate of Merlinschase, home of the Duke of Merlin. Somewhere out there, so close and yet so far away, was her niece.

  Jemima had been fifteen and away at school when Tilly was born. She had known that Jack was sweet on Beth Rosser, the scullery maid at the Duke of Merlin’s town house in Bedford Square, whom he had met when he had gone there to sweep the chimneys. Beth was small and thin and exhausted-looking from being at the beck and call of everyone in the house, but she had the kindest face and the sweetest manner that anyone could imagine. Beth had been Jemima’s friend as well as Jack’s lover. Jack would take her little presents and would hang about the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of her about her work. He never spoke of her, but Jemima remembered the dreamy look on Jack’s face sometimes; he had never looked like that since.

  When Beth had fallen pregnant, there the trouble had started. She had not dared to tell anyone until she was more than six months gone and when she did, Jack had immediately wanted to marry her. Jemima had been on holiday from school at the time and she had hidden behind closed doors as Jack and his father argued the matter out. Alfred Jewell forbade his only son to throw himself away on a girl he disparagingly called a kitchen wench. He threw doubt on Jack’s paternity of the child and laughed in Jack’s face when he demanded to be allowed to marry Beth. When the two of them crept away to try and arrange a clandestine match, Jewell had contemptuously brought them back, thrown Beth out into the street and given Jack a thrashing. Jack had disappeared for more than two weeks and only turned up again in Newgate, locked up for drunk and disorderly behaviour. He would probably have been transported if Alfred Jewell had not stepped in and paid a hefty fine.

  Meanwhile Beth had vanished. Turned off from her post, she was found by the landlady of the Saracen’s Head, who sent word that Beth had gone into labour prematurely. Though the baby had survived, Beth had died through exhaustion and loss of blood. It was the only time that Jemima had seen Jack cry.

  It was Alfred Jewell who had gone to the Duke of Merlin and arranged for the child to be found a place on his estate. Jewell had been keen to see the back of the little girl and forget that the whole episode had ever happened. Jemima had been sent back to school, shaken to the core by what she had seen. And Jack…She thought that he had never been quite the same again.

  Now she was so near to Tilly, Jemima felt torn. The urge to see her niece had been strong, for throughout the previous six years she had nurtured ideas of the little girl’s development and wondered what she looked like. Dark like Jack, with winsome curls and black eyes? Or fair like her mother, with Beth’s pale skin and sweetness of expression?

  On the other hand, it made sense to avoid both Tilly and the Duke of Merlin, for chance had an uncanny habit of throwing people together and it could prove very awkward. Jack had been right when he had said it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.

  Jemima sat down on the floor and curled up by the fireplace, resting her head against the panelled wall. She sighed. Jack did not want her to interfere and she had to respect his point of view. The past was dead and gone with Beth Rosser.

  Jemima slid down on to her velvet cloak and rubbed her cheek against the soft pile. Rob had said that she should not sleep on the floor and she did not really want to. She felt lonely—she wanted to creep back into the bed and cuddle up next to Rob for reassurance. Yet in a strange way he felt part of her loneliness. He might give her comfort, but he was still barely more than a stranger. She could not trust him. Not yet.

  She curled up against the cloak. It reminded her of when she was a child and she and Jack had slept in fireplaces, in the ashes and the soot. In some ways she had come a long way and in others she felt as though she had barely changed at all.

  Chapter Ten

  Jemima sat on the edge of her seat as the carriage turned through the gateposts and made its way up the North Avenue towards Delaval Hall. There was a strange, hollow feeling in her stomach. For all that she had been ‘my ladied’ from London to Oxfordshire, this was the moment when being Countess of Selborne suddenly hit home. Now, as the thick woodland unfurled on either side of the drive and the white stone house in the distance became progressively larger, she started to realise what it meant to be mistress of Delaval. She trembled at the enormity of it all.

  Rob had elected to ride for the final part of their journey that morning. It was a fresh, clear day with the wind blowing down from the hills and a scattering of tiny white clouds breaking the blue of the sky like small fluffy sheep. It was the most perfect day for a homecoming. In between watching the view, Jemima studied her husband as he had his first glimpse of his home for five years. Rob’s face was set and hard as he took in the obvious neglect: the waist-high grass in the meadows, the fallen walls and the overgrown rides. Yet beneath his cool demeanour Jemima sensed a repressed excitement and a powerful tension. It made her realise how little she knew or understood of this man who was now her husband.

  The coach jolted to a stop on the carriage sweep and a liveried footman came out to open the door. Rob had mentioned that Churchward had arranged for the house to be fully staffed and now Jemima saw that all the servants were lined up on the steps to greet them. An unfamiliar fear clutched at her heart. She had not been born to be a gracious lady. She would just have to make it up as she went along.

  Rob was standing by the carriage steps, waiting to hand her down himself. It was a nice touch and Jemima smiled her thanks at him, but although he smiled back she sensed that his mind was elsewhere. Presumably he was concentrating on the Hall, which looked to Jemima like an overgrown doll’s house, three storeys of top-heavy design adorned with long windows and lots of ornate stone carving. Jemima raised her brows slightly. Basically, Delaval was an ugly house. She wondered if Rob could see it too.

  The butler stepped forward to introduce them to the other servants. It was a process that took some time. Jemima smiled and nodded until her face ached and knew that in her nervousness she would never remember all the names. There were a few moments that stood out: Mrs Cole, the housekeeper, seemed like a lifeline. The estate manager had a small daughter who came forward clutching a posy of cornflowers to present, and lisped out a welcome. Jemima hugged the child, almost crushing the flowers, and nearly cried all over her. Everyone seemed to approve of this.

  Then Rob was leading her to the door and, unexpectedly, swept her up in his arms and over the threshold, to deposit her back on her feet on the sparkling tiled floor of the hall.

  ‘Welcome to my home,’ he said.

  Glancing up into his face, Jemima saw his pride and pleasure. She could hear it in his voice as well. She realised that she had discovered her husband’s one true love and she was disconcerted to feel a little jealous.

  After three weeks at Delaval, Jemima was forced to admit to herself that matters were not turning out quite as she had envisaged them. Now there was no talk of grand pianos or village schools. She needed nothing but her old clothes and she worked morning, noon and night, scrubbing the floors, polishing the windows, washing the linen, overseeing the transformation of Delaval from neglected country house to gracious home again. She worked alongside the servants, and after three weeks she felt that she knew them as well as she knew her husband little, for in that time Rob had been in her company so rarely that she was afraid she might forget what he looked like.

  In a way it was not surprising. Just as she had her work in the house, so Rob had his out and about on the estate, visiting the farms, discussing improvements with his estate manager, going to the markets to buy livestock and machinery now that Mr Churchward had freed up that part of his father’s bequest that had come to him on his marriage. Yet Jemima found herself resenting Rob�
��s distant manner. She was beginning to feel like one of the servants herself, and at least they got paid. She remembered his declaration on the day that they had married and how she had been apprehensive but excited at the prospect of his courtship. Such a thought brought a wry smile to her face now that Rob all but ignored her in favour of his long-lost love, his home.

  At first the servants had looked askance at Jemima working alongside them, but after a while they had gradually come to appreciate her efforts. Nevertheless, Mrs Cole, the motherly housekeeper, insisted that she take a rest each day in the conservatory and that she should have some time off to go out. As Jemima had no acquaintance in the district and Rob had not shown any interest in introducing her to the neighbouring families, she had taken to walking through the gardens and the surrounding fields whenever it was fine.

  It was mid-September now and the first hint of autumn was in the air. Jemima, exploring thoroughly, had decided that the Delaval estate was very beautiful even if the house was not. There was a long, wooded driveway coming in from the north that swept up to the front of the house. To the rear, the formal gardens had disappeared under a year’s neglect and roses ran rampant, tangling with blackberry, honeysuckle, foxglove and thyme. Poppies had invaded from the surrounding fields, as had nettles and cow parsley. The peacocks pecked disconsolately at the weed-strewn drive and nested in the broken-down greenhouses.

  On one of her walks Jemima had seen Rob at a distance, chatting with his estate manager over the repairs needed to the wall that enclosed the grazing meadow. She had almost gone over to join them, but then Rob had ridden away and the opportunity was lost. Since Jemima did not ride she had been unable to join him on these outings and he had not invited her to do so, though the stables now contained a very pretty, docile mare as well as his own hunter and various carriage horses.

  Instead she walked the grassy woodland rides, breathing the scents of warm grass and dry bracken, pushing her way through waist-high nettles, learning about the butterflies and the birds and the animals. She had never lived in the country before. The gentrified surroundings of Strawberry Hill were as close as she had come to rural life and the rest of the time she had lived amidst the bustle of the city. Delaval was very different. The rhythms of the country seemed alien and confusing; at night it was so dark that the stars were diamond-sharp pinpoints of light. The silence seemed alive. Once, when Jemima had heard the bark of a deer from the woodland close by, she had almost jumped out of her skin.