by Sheila Walsh
‘You do not understand, Papa … I cannot … he must not …’
It was impossible to explain, even to Papa. It had started even before they had arrived back in England ‒ with Madame de Marron, in fact.
‘Such an adventure, my love!’ she had sighed enviously. ‘And you may depend upon it, Dev will marry you after this. It cannot be otherwise ‒ I see all the signs. Ah, how you are fortunate, to succeed where so many of us have tried ‒ and failed!’
‘No!’ Madalena had said flatly to an astounded Madame.
And now, since she had arrived back in England, it had never stopped. Not only was Papa positively encouraging the match; Tante Vernon too had quite taken for granted that she and Dev would marry as soon as he was recovered. In her code of conduct, one did not disappear with a gentleman to spend several days alone in his company. But if the worst happened, then marriage was the only possible outcome. She was already planning the Easter bridals ‒ such a delightful time for a wedding!
Even Kit seemed to have accepted the inevitability of their union. Phoebe shared her mother’s view, though she also thought the whole affair prodigiously romantic and went on and on about it until Madalena was driven from the house.
It was on just such an occasion that she was walking, head down, when a carriage drew abreast of her ‒ and stopped.
Dr Laidlaw eyed the drooping figure with concern ‒ and a degree of bewilderment. ‘Good-day to you, mademoiselle. Do I find you well?’
‘Oh, yes ‒ I thank you,’ came the listless reply.
'Well, you do not look it, if I may say so!’ the doctor observed in his gruff, homely way. ‘You have been neglecting your patient of late.’
Delicate colour stained her cheeks. ‘I …’ Her eyes went to his face and the question seemed to be forced from her. ‘How is he?’
Those speaking eyes conveyed so much that her words did not. He weighed his own words with care. ‘I am a little concerned …’
‘He is not ill again?’ There was panic in her voice now. ‘No one has said anything to me! Armand visited only this morning … and he did not say …’
‘Perhaps, mademoiselle, he thought you would not care to know?’
She waited to hear no more. Her feet were flying over the ground in the direction of the Manor and the doctor looked after her with a satisfied smile.
Young Thomas, opening the door to Madalena, gaped as she rushed past without a word, taking the stairs at an un-ladylike two at a time. At the door of the bedchamber she paused to regain her breath.
Samson answered her knock. He had stayed on until he was able to take home a satisfactory report to Madame. His face now split in a huge grin. ‘Mademoiselle! Come in. You will be welcome.’
She stepped past him and the door closed softly, leaving her alone. She took a few uncertain steps towards the bed. It was empty.
‘I am over here, Madalena.’
Devereux was in the big leather armchair near the fireplace, a fur rug across his knees. He wore a handsome brocade dressing robe, but though the light from the window fell on a face that was pale against the crimson cushions and his arm was still in a sling, his eyes were clear and curiously bright.
‘You are not worse!’ she cried indignantly.
‘I am desolated to disappoint you, child,’ he drawled.
Madalena stood poised for flight, her heavy blue cloak held close about her, the hood as ever slipping back. Watching her, his lips twisted in that self-denegrating sarcasm as once before when she had hurt him deeply. ‘So? Finding me thus lamentably on the road to recovery, will you now rush away again? I should like to know what I have done.’
‘I … you have done nothing.’ She swallowed miserably, and added on a whisper, ‘It is what I fear you might feel constrained to do.’
‘And what is that, pray?’
Scarlet with embarrassment, Madalena crossed to the window and stared out, very conscious of his bright blue eyes boring into her back.
‘Come, ma mie,’ the words grated slightly. ‘You have never dissembled with me until now.’
She swung round, her eyes flitting briefly to the portrait above his head as though she would draw courage from it. ‘You are right. I have been a big coward when it needs only a little resolution.’ Her voice held the flatness of despair.
‘Everyone says you must marry me because I have compromised myself with you, but it is not at all necessary, je t’assure! It is not your fault that I came to France … and I do not care if they all think that I have been your jolie fille de joie! So … you need not concern yourself …’
So that was it! In his relief he almost laughed aloud and mentally consigned all well-meaning busy-bodies to the devil! He sensed that he must tread carefully if he would convince her.
‘Have you ever known me to care what people say of me?’
‘No …’ she faltered, ‘but this concerns me also … and because of what happened in France and because you have respect for Papa, you might feel an obligation …’
‘And I do not need to. Is that what you are saying?’
‘Yes. I will make Papa see …’
He pressed her. ‘You find perhaps that you are not in love with me after all?’
‘I did not say that!’ The cry was wrung from her. She drew a quivering breath. ‘But I will not be your wife to satisfy stupid conventions ‒ or to preserve my good name, for which I care nothing!’
‘That sounds very final, ma chère,’ Devereux said softly. ‘So. You will not be my wife. What then will you be?’
Madalena’s lashes were spiked with tears; through them his face was splintering into a thousand glittering pieces.
‘I will be anything you wish, for as long as you wish … but, oh … I did not give myself to you so that I might entrap you into marriage … and I would not have you think it …’ She choked to a halt and turned abruptly to the window again.
‘Oh, Good God!’ Devereux exploded, unsure whether to laugh or be furiously angry. ‘Come here, you absurd infant!’
But she would only shake her head, her back set resolutely against him. Not for the first time he cursed his stupid, lingering weakness, unsure whether his legs would carry him as far as the window.
‘Will you put me to the trouble of fetching you?’
The grim determination in his voice brought her round. He was already folding back the rug. In a flash she was across the space between them ‒ and found herself held, and inexorably drawn forward.
‘You cannot … you must not attempt … your arm …’
‘Be quiet!’ ordered the Duke in un-lover-like tones and proceeded to kiss her with a thoroughness that belied his infirmity. When at length he was satisfied, Madalena was somehow sitting upon his knee in a tangle of blue cloak, firmly held by his good arm.
‘It was a trick!’ she reproached him.
‘But of course, my dearest love! At our very first encounter I warned you that I seldom play fair. Whatever gave you the notion that I would do so now?’
‘Dieu! Do you remember so far back?’
‘I remember everything concerning you,’ he said softly.
‘Oh!’ She went pink and buried her head blissfully against his shoulder. Devereux lovingly removed a red curl which was tickling his chin and endeavoured to see her face.
‘Would you really come to me?’ he demanded of her. ‘On any terms that I might dictate?’
‘But of course!’ came the muffled reply. ‘Have I not said?’
‘You have talked a great deal of nonsense,’ he said forcibly. ‘Well ‒ you shall have my terms ‒ and we shall see how well you abide by your words.’ He paused. ‘I will accept nothing less than marriage, mademoiselle ‒ and a lifetime of devotion. There ‒ what have you to say to that?’
She lifted her head slowly and in her eyes uncertainty struggled with a growing rapture. ‘Voyons! Is that really what you wish?’
‘I have set my heart on it, mignonne.’
‘You prefer me inst
ead of Lady Serena?’ she persisted.
‘Good God! Whyever should I want to marry Serena?’
Madalena considered, trying very hard to be objective. ‘She would be a very good kind of wife for you, I think. She is of the World and moves in the very best circles ‒ and then she is also of good birth and knows all the right people. Or there is Madame de Marron, of course …’
Devereux stopped her mouth in the only possible way, pausing just once in order to remove his arm from its sling.
‘Tiens! You must not. What are you thinking of?’
He raised his hand with infinite care and loosened the clasp of her cloak. ‘I am getting rid of this damned encumbrance!’
‘But your shoulder …!’ Madalena wailed.
‘To the devil with my shoulder. What do I care for that when I am afflicted by a more grievous malady?’
Madalena’s breath caught in sudden fear. Had Dr Laidlaw not hinted at something …?
‘Ah, mon amour, tell me!’ she cried. ‘Is it very bad?’
His eyes lifted briefly to his mother’s portrait. Then he took one of her small hands and slid it inside his robe, placing it just above his heart so that she could feel it hammering.
‘There,’ he murmured gravely. ‘You see how it is with me. And it is only fair to warn you, ma chère Madalena, that there is no possibility of a cure!’
The Sergeant Major’s Daughter by Sheila Walsh
From the author of Madalena and The Golden Songbird, another gripping regency romance ‒ The Sergeant Major’s Daughter. Keep reading for a preview of Chapter One and details of where to buy the book.
Chapter One
The north-bound stage rumbled from the yard of the Swan Inn and plunged into the teeming congestion of Stapleforth’s main thoroughfare. The driver whipped up the horses and to the accompaniment of much cursing and shouting cleared himself a path. In a remarkably short space of time the coach was free of the town and swaying perilously along between high Wiltshire hedges.
Some five miles were covered in this manner before the road widened suddenly. The coach lumbered to a halt. The driver swung his bulk nimbly to the ground, his stentorian boom advising the inside passengers that this was where the young lady was wishful to be set down.
Felicity Vale restored the sleeping baby with infinite care to the arms of its mother and set about collecting up her gloves and her reticule. Then there were friendly farewells to be exchanged all round, for the remaining passengers had quite taken to the vital, long-legged girl whose lively conversation had done so much to relieve the tedium of their journey.
Much later, when they were hard put to it to describe her, they would recall a mouth which quirked often into rueful laughter as she talked, and a skin so brown as to make her eyes shine out like twin jewels. And her stories!
Such stories she had told them of her travels ‒ of splendid cities and barren plains, of great disasters and greater victories ‒ and of that last and greatest victory of them all when ‘Boney’ had finally been beaten and how the great Duke himself had actually spoken to her! There had been a sadness behind the eyes as she talked ‒ some personal tragedy they guessed from her dress, though to be sure she was not alone in that; hardly a family in the land had emerged unscathed from the long years of war.
Good wishes were echoing in her ears as Felicity picked up the small guitar from the corner, slung it across her shoulder by its strap and leapt lightly down from the coach.
The driver had extricated from the bulging boot a small shabby portmanteau which contained the few of her possessions not packed into the single corded trunk, and left back at the Swan Inn.
He eyed her doubtfully as she took it and jerked his head towards the massive crested gates set back at an angle from the road.
‘That’s your direction, missy,’ he wheezed. ‘But you’ve a tidy step afore you and no mistake. I still say as you’d have done better to’ve hired yourself a gig or somesuch in Stapleforth.’
‘Goodness ‒ I am not afraid of a little exercise.’ Felicity laughed and held out her hand to him. ‘Indeed, I shall enjoy it after sitting for so long. But you have been very kind and I thank you for it.’
She forbore to add that her purse would not run to the hiring of gigs and that she had no wish to arrive at her cousin’s door already in debt. Indeed, the tip for the driver was less than his kindness merited, but she hoped that the warmth of her thanks would compensate.
She waved the coach from sight before turning with determined cheerfulness towards those imposing gates, thrown open to invite exploration of the long, shady avenue of elms beyond. A small gatehouse appeared empty, so with no one to direct her she began to walk.
More than a half-hour later she was still walking, lingering from time to time where a break in the line of tree or hedgerow disclosed some particular view of breathtaking beauty.
In all her journeyings there had been nothing to equal England in summer. She was still not quite used to so much green ‒ or so much variety of landscape crammed into every mile. The carriageway meandered gracefully until, with a disconcerting final twist, all was changed.
Felicity stood ‒ and stared.
Ahead of her stretched a wide, straight walk, sentinelled by poplars of exact height and shape, fanning out in the distance to expose to view a building which, even from where she stood, exuded a grotesque air of grandeur.
‘Glory!’ she exclaimed aloud. ‘I must have missed the way! Amaryllis can’t be living in that great barracks of a place!’
A scythe moving rhythmically in the meadow behind her hovered in its downward sweep and an uncertain voice said, ‘Beg pardon, ma’am?’
Felicity swung round as a wrinkled face loomed over the hedge.
‘Oh, thank goodness!’ She smiled at the old man. ‘Would you be so good as to tell me if the house beyond is Cheynings?’
‘Ah, it be.’
She was disconcerted. ‘Then perhaps there is another house of that name?’
The gardener sniffed. ‘Only one Cheynings, ma’am. That’s been the home of the Earls of Stayne right back to King Henry VIII, that has. ’Course it’s changed a mite since. They’ve all ’ad a go at it over the years and a right skimble-skamble job they made of it!’
Hastily curtailing this architectural homily, Felicity asked, ‘Do you know if a Mrs Delamere lives there?’
‘Ah. Poor little widow woman. That was Master Antony’s bride, that was … and a bonnier creature I never did see. She and the boy have been here more’n a twelvemonth, now … since Master Antony was took …’ He shook his head and muttered to himself.
Felicity thanked him and bade him good day, hiding her dismay. Of course, Amaryllis had married a younger son, but she had not supposed her to be living in such splendour.
First instincts favoured instant flight, but the disciplines of an army upbringing would not permit such conduct … and, anyway, where would she go?
Closer inspection of the building bore out the gardener’s censure. The centrepiece was unmistakably Tudor and quite delightful, but the rest was a sprawling hodgepodge of styles reaching the height of absurdity in a pseudo-Eastern temple!
The young footman who answered the pealing bell goggled at the swarthy young Amazon ‒ five feet ten inches in her stockinged feet ‒ and, observing the guitar and shabby bag, was about to send her packing as an itinerant gypsy when the smooth-faced butler appeared at his shoulder.
A man of much greater discernment, Cavanah looked beyond the superficial to the undoubted quality in the steady grey-green eyes where lurked a humorous appreciation of the situation.
Miss Vale was ushered into a medieval hall of awe-inspiring proportions. She exclaimed aloud and the butler permitted himself a smile.
‘Ah, yes, madam ‒ we are famous for our hall. A very fine example of hammer beams ‒ one of the finest in the country, we are reliably informed.’
Felicity hid a smile and duly admired the hammer beams. Famous the hall might be; conf
oundedly draughty it certainly was! She noticed that they kept two fires burning though the day was warm. Her eye was drawn to the grand sweep of the staircase; a young man, undoubtedly a Corinthian of the first stare, had paused in the moment of ascending to put up his glass.
The odious familiarity of his scrutiny brought a dangerous sparkle to her eyes as he inclined his head and sauntered on his way.
‘Who is that?’ Felicity asked abruptly.
‘The gentleman is Mr Tristram Dytton ‒ one of Madam’s guests,’ Cavanah replied smoothly. No mere milk-and-water miss, this cousin of Mrs Antony’s ‒ a young lady to be reckoned with, or he missed his guess.
When she was presently shown into the drawing room Felicity was dismayed to find her cousin not alone. Reluctantly she stepped forward, her feet sinking into deep blue carpet; against a blackcloth of rose damask many pairs of eyes followed her progress, brows arched in amused interest.
Among the gentlemen present was the Corinthian she had encountered earlier. He was shorter than he had seemed on the staircase, which made the yellow pantaloons and tightly waisted coat seem the more absurd. Above the complex folds of his cravat he inclined his head in a gesture of recognition; his remark addressed to the lady at his side reached Felicity distinctly.
‘Did I not say? Bwown as a nut, egad! But such a figure! A Juno, m’dear ‒ a vewitable Juno!’
A faint titter came from somewhere in the room. Felicity was made desperately aware of her inches ‒ and of the travel-crumpled black dress and the stain upon her spencer where the fat lady’s baby had dribbled down it.
Her eyes sparked momentarily and then moved to seek out the beautiful, indolent creature who reclined upon a nearby sofa. Eyes like gentian violets opening to the sun widened in response to the huskily voiced greeting.
‘Lud!’ the vision exclaimed, her incredulous glance flicking over Felicity. ‘Are you in truth my cousin? How you have grown! I declare I should never have known you.’
This droll observation brought a further titter and Felicity, colouring slightly, was forced to take a firm hold on her temper. For her there was no problem of recognition.