The Harem Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  But the earl did not linger with his friends that night. Although he was still roundly cursing Fate for saddling him with so many disasters, he left his friends to amuse themselves at billiards and—after enduring slaps on the back and pithy comments on how to divert his wife’s wrath—he changed into his dressing gown and dismissed his valet. Perhaps if he selected a bit of jewelry from the family vault . . .? No. Gentlemen bought off their mistresses, not their wives. Jason then recalled all the fine new pieces of jewelry worn by the wives of acquaintances who were blatantly engaged with a ladybird or with other men’s wives, and sighed. Jewelry, it seemed, was tantamount to an admission of guilt. Therefore, he must go to his wife empty-handed.

  The trouble was, he was also empty-headed. For all his much vaunted wit and savoir faire, he could think of no satisfactory way to inform his wife that his mistress had followed him to Shropshire. Hell and the devil confound it! He had enough problems with his marriage without Daphne taking a page from Caro Lamb’s book.

  The earl could hear the drum tattoo and rattle of the tumbril as he made the long walk through the dressing rooms to his wife’s bedchamber. Half-way across Penny’s dressing room, Jason paused, his single candle casting wavering light over his wife’s colorful new gowns and rows of matching slippers. The scent of lavender wafted past his nose, yet he could almost swear he detected the more exotic perfumes of the East, tantalizing his senses beneath the solid odors of a proper English garden.

  Penny Blayne. A charming young bud of femininity transformed into the enchanting seductive odalisque, Gulbeyaz. Then, with a snap of Cassandra Pemberton’s man-hating fingers, into a forbiddingly proper, stiff-spined Englishwoman only grudgingly willing to perform her wifely duties.

  Unfair. She might not be Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, but their nights of passion had been far from one-sided. And yet . . . his wife continued to hold something back. Love, perhaps. And why should she not, when he had given his heart to his harem bride and could not seem to bridge the gap to her present incarnation?

  If they had lived together from the beginning, what would their life be like now? Would he have resented being tied down so young? Would he have taken a mistress? Would they now be playing this same scene, even though the third floor nursery was well occupied with so-called pledges of their affection?

  Unfortunately, the answer to all three questions was quite possibly yes.

  But would his mistress have made the insane move of following him to Shropshire?

  He had arrived at his wife’s door. Jason, making a valiant effort to paste a pleasant expression on his face, lifted the latch and walked in.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Twenty

  At first he did not see her. Plainly, the bed, so carefully turned down by a chamber maid, was empty. Ridding himself of the glare of his candle by setting it on his wife’s dressing table, Jason allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom. And there she was . . . tucked up on a cushioned window seat, bathed in moonlight, the flounces of that remarkable dressing gown tumbling in a cascade to the carpet. Dear God, he had never felt less like forcing himself to a serious discussion. All he wanted—all any man could want in such a situation—was . . .

  Grimly, the earl picked up the delicate chair that matched his wife’s dressing table and moved it to within a foot of her elaborate flounces. Without a word, he sat, noting with some trepidation that her gaze was still fixed on the gardens below, shimmering in all the beauty of a warm June night.

  “You suspect the worst, do you not?” he said at last.

  “I am not a complete fool, my lord, although my laggardness in understanding what should have been as plain as a box to the ear, shames me. Such a sad length of time for me to make sense of Mrs. Houghton’s attempts at the lady’s name. Your friends’ arrival, their sly looks and whisperings, your mama’s shock and valiant attempt to recover. Yet there is nothing new in my ignorance, is there, my lord? As always, in spite of my advanced age, I am the naive child; you, the sophisticated rake—”

  “I did not invite her here!”

  Jason’s roar brought his wife’s head ’round in a slow turn, every fiber of her being bristling with wounded dignity. “You have known her a long time, have you not?”

  “Yes,” the earl ground out.

  “And for how long has she been your mistress?”

  “Close on two years. But,” Jason added swiftly, I have not been in her bed since you and I renewed our vows.”

  “Really?” The countess sounded surprisingly indifferent. “Have you, I wonder, made your feelings perfectly clear to Mrs. Coleraine? And do you not feel you have some obligation to this woman of good family?”

  “Do not be absurd, Penny. She was an obliging—nay, eager—widow, and I was glad enough to sample her charms. What else did I have?” the earl added a trifle petulantly.

  “It seems to me you have had a great deal,” his wife returned. “Every privilege of your title and your wealth, while I . . . But pay me no mind. Feeling sorry for myself will pay no toll.”

  Jason raised his hand to touch her, tell her there was no need to flail herself in this manner, but his fingers fell back, clenching into a fist as Penny added, “It is most inconvenient that the Sultan Selim is dead or you could sue him for criminal concupiscence, as Lord Elgin did with Robert Ferguson. Elgin received a mere ten thousand pounds. Just think, my lord, what you might have pried from the Turkish treasury.”

  “Penelope,” the earl intoned, most awfully.

  “But since you cannot sue poor Selim,” his wife continued in carefully reasoned tones, “perhaps you may choose some wealthy gentleman you do not like, and I shall write him most frightfully incriminating letters, as poor foolish Ferguson did to Lady Elgin. Then you will be able to collect from him a satisfactory sum to compensate you for the years you have endured this most inconvenient match—”

  “If I had ever wanted a divorce,” a thoroughly incensed Lord Rocksley broke in, “I would have told you so. And if I did get a divorce, I swear to you I would not marry Daphne Coleraine. I am,” he added in softer, almost cajoling tones, “quite content with the wife I have.”

  Merciful heavens, his insouciance must well be one of the wonders of the world! “If Aunt Cass had allowed us to be truly married,” Penny managed, “do you think we might be playing this same scene, rebelling against the inevitability of fate and wishing we had waited?”

  For the first time since he had heard of Daphne Coleraine’s arrival in Shropshire, Jason felt a bubble of humor pushing its way through the gloom, for had he not wondered the same himself? “Very likely,” he agreed, “but, hopefully, our nursery would be full of young Lisbournes, and we would each know we were merely encountering a bump on the long road of marriage. We would, I think, hold hands”—Jason’s action followed his words. “I would touch your cheek, put my finger to your lips, and tell you we have both made mistakes and must learn to forgive. I would”—he moved within a hair’s breadth of her mouth—“kiss you.” A longish pause while the earl did just that. “And then we would go to bed.” Gently, ever so gently, the Earl of Rocksley handed his wife down from the window seat and walked with her toward the waiting bed, careful to keep his arm only loosely about her, never pinning her down, making it clear the choice was hers.

  Penny walked with him, giving no indication of the unresolved turmoil inside her. Content. Jason Lisbourne was content with the wife he had. How very gratifying. Though, she had to admit, it was a step up from her wedding night announcement that she was reconciled to being his wife. What fools they both were. Yet who was to provide the sword to cut the Gordian knot of their marriage?

  “I beg you will not do this!” Penny declared fervently the next morning as the dowager tied her bonnet and pulled on her gloves.

  “Needs must when the devil rides,” said the elder Lady Rocksley with grim determination. “I will not have that ineffably foolish Tabitha Houghton sending cards to that woman!”

  “But I understand Mrs. Co
leraine is received everywhere,” Penny protested. “Attempting to shut her out only emphasizes the . . . the–ah–unfortunate association.”

  “Unfortunate association! Dear God, child, how can you be so charitable? Unnatural, that’s what it is. Positively unnatural.”

  “Is that . . . is that not what is expected in the ton, my lady? A wife must accept the inevitable . . . and have the courage to make the best of what life puts on her plate?”

  The Dowager Countess of Rocksley gave one last tug on her glove, then waved her hand toward the morning room’s comfortable striped settee. “Sit down, Penelope,” she said. The elder countess removed her bonnet and, setting it on a side table, took a seat beside her daughter-in-law. “You may stare when I tell you, my dear, but Jason’s father was faithful to me for all the years of our marriage. And, no, I was not some silly ostrich with my head in a hole. And your Jason is made of the same cloth. You may take my word for it, he was never cut out to be a rakehell. I believe him when he says he has not been with Mrs. Coleraine since you came to him here in Shropshire. And so should you. Therefore, we have only to rout this contemptible creature, who would chase after him like a hound after a fox, and you may be free to enjoy your marriage to its fullest.” The dowager, deciding she had made her point quite well, reached for her bonnet.

  “My lady,” Penny said swiftly, even though her solemn expression indicated she was considering the dowager’s words with care, “I still wish you would not speak to Mrs. Houghton. The poor woman cannot, in all conscience, retract her invitation. There would be enormous embarrassment on all sides, not the least of which would be mine, as such a cut to Mrs. Coleraine could only precipitate the kind of gossip we wish to avoid. I am so grateful,” Penny added on an urgent note, “so very grateful you wish to go off and do battle for me, truly I am. But I beg you not to stir the waters. I will—indeed, I must—face Mrs. Coleraine and make the best of it.”

  Penny ducked her head, a blush creeping up her neck to suffuse her face a glowing pink. “Last night . . .” She broke off, made another attempt. “Jason has assured me their liaison is at an end. At some time in the near future, I must meet Mrs. Coleraine in town. It is best, I think, to endure the initial introduction here, rather than under the avid scrutiny of the entire ton.”

  “Oh, my dear child,” cried the dowager. “I doubt I should ever have the strength to be so shockingly brave.” But, slowly, with resignation, Eulalia Lisbourne, Dowager Countess of Rocksley, began to work her fingers free of her fine kid gloves.

  Two hours later, as Lord Brawley and Mr. Dinsmore once again indulged in a desultory game of billiards, they paused, eyebrows raised in query as Lord Rocksley entered the room. Gant Deveny rested his cue against the soft carpet, eyeing his friend’s gloomy face with sympathy. “The lady was not cooperative,” he intoned. It was not a question.

  “She was not,” the earl concurred flatly.

  “But how can she wish to stay where her name is anathema?” Harry Dinsmore demanded.

  “She has, it seems, convinced herself that my wife’s reputation is so thoroughly ruined that I must divorce her, leaving the ever-faithful Daphne to assuage my wounded pride and provide me with the necessary heir.”

  “Elgin has at least two brats in his second marriage, after four or five with the first,”. Gant Deveny drawled, deliberately goading his friend. “I swear the man breeds like a rabbit.”

  The Earl of Rocksley grabbed the billiards cue from Brawley’s hand and snapped the birdseye maple stick into two pieces, while looking very much as if he wished to break it over the viscount’s head. “I have told you,” Jason ground out, “I do not want a divorce. I do not want Daphne as mother of my children.”

  “She wasn’t ‘ever-faithful’ either,” Harry Dinsmore commented. “Must have seen her with Ormsby or Haliburton a dozen times or more, Rock, since you sent us all packing last winter.”

  “So the squire’s musical evening is likely to feature fireworks,” murmured Lord Brawley, enjoying, as always, his role of provocateur.

  “Perhaps we should all be afflicted with the influenza,” Mr. Dinsmore offered.

  “Cut line, Harry,” the earl snapped. “I fear we must, quite literally, face the music.” While his friends groaned at this sally, Jason tossed the pieces of the broken cue into a corner, then lifted a fresh stick from the rack on the wall. “And do not forget,” he added with savage satisfaction, “I believe my wife expects you both to do the pretty with the village maidens, who are, I believe, all aflutter at the thought of having such fine London gentlemen among them.”

  With that Parthian shot, the earl strolled nonchalantly from the room, paying no heed to Mr. Dinsmore’s sputtered, “Oh, I say, Rock!”

  The younger Countess of Rocksley brought up her heavy guns for the Houghtons’ musical evening. With Wellington winning battles at last on the Peninsula, military terms were on everyone’s tongues, and Penny’s was no exception. If the Houghtons’ attempt at culture could not qualify as a battle, it was most certainly a skirmish, and the wife of the Earl of Rocksley would dress accordingly. Yes, Penny admitted to herself, as Noreen entwined a strand of small but finely matched pearls in her hair, she might be a wee bit overdressed for a country musicale, but—as she had known when “Mrs. Galworthy” slipped off to London to acquire a new wardrobe—fine clothing was armor. And tonight she very much needed it.

  Her high-waisted gown of French blue was beautifully understated, falling in a graceful column topped by a half-skirt of delicate white lace. Lace also peeped out from beneath her hemline and from the cuffs of her tiny puffed sleeves and at the edge of her daring décolletage. A single sequin, glittering iridescently, winked from the center of each pristine flower fashioned into the white lace. In addition to the pearls in her hair, Penny wore a modest aigrette of sequined feathers on one side of her head. The aigrette was sheer defiance, a reminder of the jeweled feathers that distinguished the turbans of the Ottoman sultans.

  After Noreen fastened the diamond necklace the earl had given his wife and helped affix the matching earbobs, Penny turned to her long-time companion. “Will I do?” she inquired.

  “Indeed you will, me darlin’. There’s none can touch ye,” Noreen affirmed, her Irish even more broad than usual.

  The eager light faded from Penny’s eyes. “If only that were true,” she sighed. “I may look quite splendid, but I am all aquake inside.”

  “She canna hold a candle to ye, love,” Noreen declared.

  “You have not seen the woman.” Penny sighed.

  “She could be that Venus they talk about, but you’re the wife, and never forget it!”

  Penny gave Noreen a hug, squared her shoulders, and went to war. Somehow, the poor bachelor vicar, Adrian Stanmore, and his possible brides, Miss Mary Houghton and Miss Helen Seagrave, had vanished from her mind.

  When, however, the party from Rockbourne Crest arrived at Squire Houghton’s, Penny was instantly reminded of her broken vow to concentrate on the problems of her friends so she might not have time to contemplate her own. For as the guests were ushered to the fragile-looking chairs Tabitha Houghton had had set up in her drawing room, Helen Seagrave was just finishing the tuning of her harp, which had been brought by wagon from Cranmere several hours later than the carter had originally promised.

  Such a lovely picture Helen made, Penny thought, for Miss Seagrave had been persuaded she could not perform while wearing anything so old cattish as a cap. Her gown of rose lustring added color to her pale cheeks and her brown hair glowed with vibrance under the light from two tall multi-branched candelabras placed to illuminate the performance area. Miss Seagrave’s fingers were long and graceful, her lovely gray eyes tantalizingly hidden beneath long lashes as she kept her eyes fixed on her strings, their tuning pegs, and the chromatic pedals that were the very latest addition to harp design.

  Helen looked up, glanced at the earl and his guests, and, with the briefest of smiles to the countess, she effaced herself, sl
ipping out of the room before anyone else might see her at her plebeian task. Penny looked around for Mr. Stanmore, pleased to discover him in the third row on the left, though he was barely visible behind the bevy of women surrounding him. Continuing what she hoped was a subtle inspection of the room, while nodding and smiling to acquaintances, Penny was infinitely relieved when she did not see the dashing beauty of Daphne Coleraine. Could it be someone had persuaded the dratted woman not to come? For as much as she could not blame Mrs. Coleraine’s obsession with the earl—even to the point of feeling sympathy with the poor creature to whom Jason seemed so coldly indifferent in spite of their long-time association—Penny truly did not care to be reminded that little Penny Blayne was no competition for an accomplished courtesan (no matter how gentle her birth).

  With much fluttering, and far too many words from both the squire and his wife, the musical evening finally began, with the absence of Mrs. Daphne Coleraine an unexplained mystery. Just prior to the squire’s lengthy speech of welcome, Penny had seen Lord Brawley and Mr. Dinsmore with their heads together, whispering, and had no doubt about the subject of their conversation. Penny, smiling just a bit smugly, settled into her chair, prepared to enjoy the music far more than she had anticipated. Beside her, she could feel Jason begin to relax as well. It would seem, praise be, that they had been spared.

  Miss Mary Houghton, though looking as if she wished the floor would open and swallow her up, was a credit to her teacher. Miss Seagrave not only played pieces by Haydn and Scarlatti but accompanied Mr. Jeremy Tate, tutor to the squire’s younger children, while he performed a lively variety of country songs. Helen Seagrave then offered a thundering piece by Mr. Beethoven, which was met with enthusiastic applause, after which she surprised everyone by coaxing a suddenly shy Adrian Stanmore to the makeshift stage to join her in a decorous Italian duet.