When the last tinkle had come to rest, Gant Deveny said, with more care than he usually took about his remarks, “Yardley, overcome by a fit of conscience, has retracted.” For a moment the two men’s eyes caught and held. Mr. Yardley’s decision not to dine out on his story, as they both knew, had been more due to fear of serious bodily injury than the result of a belated attack of conscience.
“The other friend who was with you in Constantinople is with Wellington,” Lord Brawley continued. “Lord Elgin, Hunt, the others at the embassy at that time, are too much the gentlemen and too well trained in diplomacy ever to reveal the truth. And in the past few days you and I have put about the story of Miss Pemberton’s illness, resulting in your hasty marriage to her niece. By next Season, Rock, you should have no difficulty presenting your bride to the ton. There will have been a dozen worse on dits by then.”
Jason was still slumped in his chair, glowering at the tips of his toes. The brandy decanter on the table beside him was nearly empty. “Once again, I am grateful for the warning, Gant. If I had brought Penelope into the midst of this . . .”
“At the rate Caroline Lamb is making a fool of herself over Byron, the tale of the Countess of Rocksley as a harem girl should be short-lived. Some say the Lamb had herself delivered to Byron on a silver platter. Without a stitch, Rock, without a stitch.”
That caught the earl’s attention. He lifted his head, raised a questioning brow.
“Apochryphal, perhaps,” Lord Brawley shrugged, his hair shining even redder than usual in the flickering firelight, “but that’s how the tale goes. She was curled up, naked as a jay, under a great silver lid. When the cover came off, voilà, there she was, a dish to tempt a king.”
“Or the snottiest young lord in the realm,” the earl growled. “Byron deserves to be haunted by Caroline Lamb and every other foolish female who sighs over that blasted Childe Harold. What he and Knight have done to Lord Elgin is a bloody sin. The man saved some of the world’s finest works of art. Sculptures going to rack and ruin by weather, war, and every passing thief, including Bonaparte. And long before our time, the Greeks themselves destroyed part of the Parthenon by converting it to a church. Then the demmed Turks turned it into a mosque.”
The earl leaned forward, his cobalt eyes alight with indignation. “It’s a high point, the Acropolis, a perfect site for a fortress. So, naturally, the Turks stored gunpowder there, which was blown sky high by lightning, taking the Propylaea with it. And in the seventeenth century the Venetians had the temerity to shell the place, with the Parthenon taking a direct hit.
Think on it, my friend. Can you imagine anyone so mad as to shell the Acropolis?
“And then Bonaparte’s agents came along and were bent on stealing what was left. So what was poor Elgin to do? And yet, between them, Knight and Byron have succeeded in making him such a villain that I fear he may be reviled down the years of history, instead of praised for what he has done.”
Slowly, Jason hauled himself to his feet and went in search of another brandy glass. “Even my dear wife,” he said over his shoulder, “tells how she cringed when she watched the workers chipping out the metopes.” As he poured more brandy, the earl shook his head. “Some of the greatest archeological treasures of the world now rest in the Duke of Devonshire’s courtyard, and no one but poor Elgin and his voluble detractors even seem to care.”
Lord Brawley, in an attempt to divert his friend from descending from morose into melancholia, chose an abrupt change of subject. “And what of the fair Daphne?” he inquired. “Have you seen her since your return?”
For a moment Gant feared a second brandy glass would follow the first into the fireplace.
“She has seen me,” Jason mumbled into his brandy “At the Haversham’s rout and the St. Aubyn’s ball. She initiated two conversations, to which I responded briefly. That is the sum of it.”
“Yet you have not formally broken with her?”
“Should I?”
“Should you not?”
The Earl of Rocksley’s shoulders stiffened as he teetered on the brink of grabbing his best friend by the crisp white linen of his cravat, hauling him to the door, and booting him down the front steps. Fortunately, the earl’s mind was not so fogged by brandy fumes that he had totally forgotten his friend spoke nothing but the truth. Instead, Jason decided to take umbrage with Lord Brawley’s uncharacteristic sensibilities. “I was under the impression, my friend,” said the earl, “that you prided yourself on being a man of the world, a sophisticate of the first order. And do I now hear recommendations of marital fidelity? Turned Evangelist, have you, dear boy? My wife is a cast-off of Sultan Selim the Third, yet I am expected to eschew my delightful mistress of two full years—”
“Damnation, Rock! Are you saying that scurrilous tale is true?”
The Earl of Rocksley set his brandy glass on the sidetable with a thud. “Not that it’s any of your bloody business, but my wife—” Jason bit off his words, a horrifying thought rushing through his mind. He could not truly attest to his wife’s virginity. The Grand Vizier had assured him that only a virgin could be given to a pasha as a wife, but he did not actually know . . . Therefore, his intended hot-headed response that his wife was most certainly a virgin might not be true. Nor could he attest that his wife was still as virginal as the day she was born, as he had had a grand total of two wedding nights with her and a series of nights to follow in ice-bound Shropshire, and yet he had done nothing. Nothing at all. A lack of action to which he could not possibly admit.
So he would lie—or at least pretend a conviction he did not have. “My wife’s purity has never been in doubt,” declared the Earl of Rocksley, a trifle too pugnaciously. “She was a virgin on our wedding night and, unlike poor Charles Lamb with his Caroline, I have no reason to doubt her fidelity. And damn and blast you, Brawley, for having the temerity to ask.”
Jason pushed himself to his feet. “And now, if you would be so good as to find your own way out, I’m for my bed. Rescuing my wife’s reputation is demanding work. I find myself quite fatigued.”
As the butler bolted the front door of Rocksley House behind him, Gant Deveny stood motionless on the front landing, his pale face reflecting more sorrow than cynicism. Never had he seen a woman who appeared less like a harem girl than Penelope Lisbourne. He would have helped squelch the scandalous tales about her, even if Jason were not his best friend. And yet, there was something more to the tale, something he could not put his finger on. Something deeper than the ton’s latest on dit.
He thought of the gallant manner in which the ice-encrusted Lady Rocksley had dealt with a drunken butler and a hostile housekeeper, while sounds of raucous revelry drifted down from the gallery above. Ah, yes, there was more to Penelope Lisbourne than met the eye.
Suddenly, Lord Brawley gave a great bark of laughter. He—tall to the point of gangly, red haired, pale skinned, freckled, and afflicted by a terminal case of cynicism—was actually considering playing Cupid. With a jaunty whistle, and swinging his cane as if he didn’t have a care in the world, Gant set off toward his rooms at the Albany.
Half a block away, he broke off in mid-whistle, his cane freezing in mid swing. What if Lady Rocksley followed her husband to town? What if she stepped straight into the harem scandal, exacerbated by the earl’s unresolved relationship with Daphne Coleraine?
Oh, devil it!. He’d think about it in the morning. Lord Brawley’s whistle was not heard during the remainder of his walk to Oxford Street, where he hailed a hackney to take him back to his rooms near St. James.
“Your pardon, my lady,” Hutton said, interrupting Penny’s frowning perusal of the linen inventory in the cozy morning room at the rear of the house, “but Mr. Thomas Tickwell has come to call.” In response to his mistress’s blank look, the butler added, “Mr. Tickwell is the earl’s solicitor, my lady. Handles all county legal matters for his lordship. Though, naturally,” Hutton added in what he fancied was the tone of a most superior household maj
ordomo, “Lord Rocksley also has a legal gentleman in London.”
For the Countess of Rocksley, a haze seemed to pass over the sun outside; the room dimmed most alarmingly. For what possible reason . . .? Jason had made it quite clear he wanted an heir, so a legal separation was out of the question. Dear God, did he mean to divorce her? That must be it. Having discovered he could not bear to bed her, he was going to petition Parliament for a divorce. That was why he had gone to London. Leaving his local solicitor the sorry task of imparting the dire news.
Coward! Penny was unsure if her epithet was aimed at her husband or herself, for her feet refused to obey her command to move. “Hutton,” she murmured, “perhaps you would be kind enough to show the gentlemen in here?”
“Of course, my lady.” The butler bowed himself out, returning shortly with a man of such medium age, medium height, and innocuous appearance that Penny’s spirits rose a notch, in spite of her conviction that his business with her must be quite shocking. Mr. Thomas Tickwell simply did not look like an ogre bent on destroying her life. To top off the contrast with what Penny had expected, his hazel eyes were twinkling and his full lips curved into a broad smile.
“Lady Rocksley,” her husband’s solicitor said, with a neatly executed bow, “may I offer my congratulations on your marriage? You are a most welcome addition to Cranmere and the county.”
Murmuring an automatic response, Penny asked him to be seated. She folded her shaking hands on top of the linen inventory and regarded the solicitor inquiringly. Inside herself, she felt as icy cold as the night of her arrival at Rockbourne Crest. Her mind was in tumult, yet her heart seemed to have stopped.
“Ah, yes, here we are.” Mr. Tickwell drew a stack of papers from the leather case at his side. “Lord Rocksley deeply regrets that urgent business took him to London before he settled the matter of your allowance. He has asked me to rectify the situation. He did not, of course, intend to go off and leave you without a feather to fly with.” Mr. Tickwell beamed at his own mild humor, adjusted his gold rimmed spectacles, then once again dipped his head to the papers in front of him. “The earl wishes you to have an allowance of a five hundred pounds per quarter, my lady, with the stipulation that any extraordinary expenses, such as a court dress, will be paid from his funds.” Stiff parchment rustled as the solicitor turned to a different page. “And the earl further acknowledges that you have a right to access the income from the monies left to you by your father, the late Lord Christopher Blayne. Lord Rocksley’s solicitor in London—and indeed I concur—believes that Mr. Hector Farley erred in cutting you off from these funds as your father’s will stipulates the monies should come to you on reaching your majority.”
Penny’s manners deserted her. “W-what?” she stammered.
Mr. Tickwell favored the countess with a look of avuncular indulgence. Obviously, he was most pleased to be the bearer of such good tidings. “Your parents were not enormously wealthy, my lady, but the younger son of a marquess does not go unshod into the world. “Your inheritance was some twenty thousand in the funds that has grown quite nicely over the past seventeen years. I am most happy to tell you, Lady Rocksley, that the earl is placing the accumulated interest of these funds under your control.”
The solicitor’s cheerful everyman face was dimmed for a moment by a frown. “A most unusual action, I assure you, but he was adamant. The money is yours, he said, to do with as you wish. Miss Pemberton’s monies,” he added carefully, “will also come to you directly, as stipulated in her will. But for those, I fear you must wait until your thirtieth birthday.”
Mr. Thomas Tickwell sat back in his chair, looking quite pleased with himself, while Penny continued to stare at the sheaf of papers in his hand as if they were a snake that might come alive and strike at any moment.
The papers did not move. They did not suddenly burst into flame.
“I am independently wealthy,” Penny murmured at last. “Truly?”
“Most truly, my lady.” I have been in direct correspondence with both Lord Rocksley and his London solicitor. He held out two sheets of parchment. “You have merely to sign here and here, and I shall be on my way. After, of course”—he rummaged through the contents of his leather case, reaching all the way to the bottom—“I am to give you this,” he said, triumphantly producing a leather pouch obviously filled with coins. “Your first quarter’s allowance, my lady.” He jingled the bag, his smile close to mischievous.
Penny knew she should say something, but the reality of this meeting was so far from her dire imaginings that her tongue seemed turned into one of Lord Elgin’s forever-frozen marbles. Wordlessly, she laid the two legal documents on top of the linen inventory and signed her name where indicated, recalling in the nick of time to add Lisbourne at the end.
Somehow she also remembered to say thank you as she handed the pages back, remembered to shake hands and offer the usual polite phrases of farewell. But never afterward would she recollect exactly what she said. Jason did not want a divorce! He had made her independently wealthy. He had, in fact, given her her freedom.
Freedom to run away to that cottage in the country. To bury herself somewhere so far from civilization that no one would ever know . . .
Oh, no, that was not the case at all. More like, Jason was mindful of the story about the little bird released from its cage that came flying back, of its own free will, to its master.
Master. Unfortunate thought. Master was not a word she cared for. Not a whit. It reminded her of Mustafa Rasim and the Sultan.
For days now her mind had been preoccupied with just one thought—how to make her marriage viable. And it would appear Jason had thoughts of a similar nature. He did not want a divorce. He wanted a wife . . . and children.
A pity, the earl had said when she rejected all memories of Gulbeyaz, I rather thought she was enchanting.
Did he really?
Very well, she was now free to go to London and find out. She would acquire a wardrobe fit to dazzle a prince, let alone an earl from the wild marches of Shropshire. She would captivate the ton with stories of her world travels. She would even help defend Lord Elgin and his marbles, attesting to seeing them torn from the buildings on the heights of the Acropolis in Athens with her very own eyes. She would urge Jason to speak on the subject in Parliament. She would become a grand political hostess . . . or perhaps she would have a salon, featuring the finest poets, musicians, artists, and thinkers.
The schoolgirl Penelope Blayne clapped her hands for sheer joy. Yes, she would burst upon the ton in the come-out she should have had long years ago when they were still traveling the Americas. And it would all be a surprise. Yes, that was it. She would not again arrive on Jason’s doorstep the poor bedraggled woman she had been the night of the sleet storm. She would burst upon his vision a new woman, done up to the nines in the latest fashions, from the hair on her head to the tips of her toes. From the set of her shoulders and the jauntiness of her walk to the confidant smile on her face. She would be . . . beautiful again.
Beware, Jason, your wife is on the attack. Like Wellington at Badajoz, she would besiege her husband’s heart. And conquer. He would find her too dazzling, too tantalizing, to turn from her in disgust.
Penny raised her eyes to stare out the window at the fresh shoots of green now decorating the trees and bushes. Hope springs eternal, was that not the ancient adage? And she believed, because she wanted to believe. She had a marriage to resurrect, and somehow she must manage it. For if Jason wished to be rid of her, granting her all this money was surely not the way he would have gone about it.
So now, all she had to do was find a way to slip into London quite anonymously . . . Penny bounded to her feet, her energy suddenly shooting up to a level not seen since before Cassandra Pemberton’s last illness. She must find Noreen. The Irish had a talent for survival. Together, they would contrive. Ah, yes, Noreen O’Donnell was the very one to aid and abet the Countess of Rocksley’s last desperate bid for love.
&nb
sp; ~ * ~
Chapter Fifteen
Ten days later, a modest hotel on the edge of Mayfair was honored with the patronage of the Widow Galworthy. Eschewing the elegancies of the Pulteney, the Clarendon, or Grillon’s, Mrs. Edmund Galworthy, clad head to toe in unrelieved black, her face obscured by a black silk veil which fell in graceful folds from the rim of her bonnet all the way to her elbows, stood wilting to one side of the hotel desk while her most superior maid demanded a suite of the Ashley Arm’s finest rooms. Mrs. Galworthy maintained her silence, with grand stoicism, until the porters had deposited the ladies’ baggage in their rooms, acknowledged their generous vails with salutes and a grin, and bowed their way out.
The so-called Winifred Galworthy then stripped off her veil—with all its hated recollections—and, with a cry of triumph, threw herself into a great overstuffed chair placed near their third-floor window. “We’ve done it,” Penny cried. “We’ve actually done it. We are in London, and no one has the slightest idea who we are or how to find us. It’s—” The Countess of Rocksley broke off, searching for some way to express the unexpected surge of emotion that had overtaken her the moment the door closed behind the porters. “In my whole life, Noreen,” she said at last, “in my whole life I’ve never really been free. Everyone in Shropshire assumes I am at Rocksley House, and my lord is happily certain I am safely stashed away in Shropshire.”
“And does it not occur to you freedom could be a mite lonely?” the Irish maid cautioned.
Penny stretched her arms high above her head, as if reaching for the sky, holding them there for a moment before allowing them to fall back into her lap.. “You are, of course, quite right,” she admitted. “Aunt Cass was free, was she not? And though she loved roaming the world and discovering new things, I cannot believe it brought her much happiness in the end.”
The Harem Bride Page 14