by Regina Darcy
The women were both obviously dumbfounded, barely managing to greet her, and then hurrying to leave, no doubt to spread some vicious story abroad about the woman the Duke had fallen in with. Charlotte didn’t care. She knew who she was, and what she was to the man she loved. She foresaw a future devoid of visits from the Astons, for which she was grateful in advance.
As the wedding day approached, the house began to fill with the wedding guests. Her parents, her sister, her aunt Anne and best friend Emma arrived first. The girls were to be her bridesmaids. Next came Edmund’s Aunt Jane and her companion, and his friend Tom, along with his father, Sir Algernon. Last to arrive were his cousin James and his wife. Eliza and Mary Anne were excused from classes for the week prior to the wedding, much to their delight, so that they could be fitted with new dresses and shoes. Edmund obtained a special license, which he had safely tucked away in his study. Neither he nor Charlotte were ever allowed to be alone together, his Aunt Agnes as vigilant as a Major-General.
On the morning of the wedding, the guests left for the chapel first, followed by Edmund, with Tom as his witness, and Charlotte was last to leave. She wore a cream-colored silk and taffeta dress with pink blush lace trim and embroidered flowers around the neckline and hem. She wore the earrings and necklace to match the ring Edmund had given her, and a sweet cap of lace and flowers. As she walked down the aisle on her father’s arm, Charlotte smiled as she recalled how certain she had been that this would never come to pass. To flout the expectations of society in this way was rare, and she knew her soon-to-be husband was making a great sacrifice for her, which only made her love him more.
The vicar read the service, they said their vows, signed the register along with their witnesses, and the ceremony was over. Edmund’s vows still rang in Charlotte’s ears: “With this Ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” It gave her a sweet thrill because those words had been said to her. She blushed at the thought of how he would worship her with his body, and prayed it would be better than it was rumoured to be.
By noon they were back at Marbleton House, and an extravagant lunch was served. Charlotte and Edmund sat next to each other at the table, both wishing for the same thing…to be alone together for the first time in almost two months. They bore the lengthy meal with equanimity, though, knowing that soon, they could begin to enjoy the life together they thought they could never have.
EPILOGUE
The sun had long since set and the moon was on the rise. Stars twinkled in a clear sky, and a soft breeze brushed Charlotte’s skin. She sat cross-legged in the big armchair that Edmund had pulled up to the window when they had first arrived in their honeymoon cottage by the lake. She shivered slightly...the breeze carried the remnants of the cooling, refreshing rain that had fallen all evening. A sound behind her made her turn her head, and she saw her husband of less than a day smiling at her.
“Come back to bed, my darling,” he implored her. “I’m not done celebrating our wedding.”
She chuckled. “I thought you were asleep,” she said, though she didn’t move.
“Who can sleep with the world’s most beautiful and desirable woman curled up in his arms? I am merely a man, my love, not a god!”
She laughed outright at his silliness, but rose and went back to his waiting arms. She had found that she loved being in his arms. She felt safe there, loved, adored. Edmund pulled her down to his face for a kiss, and when he had her trembling in a quite satisfying way, he asked,
“Are you happy, my love?”
He stroked her hair as he spoke, and when she nodded, he smiled. “I will do everything in my power to keep you happy. I promise,” he said, “for as long as we live.”
Charlotte leaned up to see his face, and smiled back at him. She believed him. It was that simple.
She looked forward to her happy-ever-after life with great anticipation.
The End
BONUS CHAPTER 1:
CAPTIVATED BY THE EARL
ONE
The young woman who was briskly walking to her destination did not notice the interest of the men—not all of them gentlemen—who paused in their labours and conversations to admire her impeccable posture, resplendent hair the colour of cinnamon, and her straightforward gaze which did not employ the coy habits of other women of marriageable age. Had any of them wished to engage her interest, they would have failed in their attempts if they chose to praise her for her beauty, or to strike a sonnet in tribute to her carriage. But if any of them had the inspiration to talk of ships, of ports in other countries or the products that sailed upon the ships populating the oceans of the world, or the unassailable legacy of seafaring London, they would have had no trouble in attracting her attention.
Unlike others of her sex, who had been reared to regard themselves as matrimonial quarry, Elizabeth Hargrave had been raised by a widowed father who, a novice in the upbringing of daughters, had treated his only child like a beloved apprentice. Henry Hargrave was a merchant, a very successful one, and his faith in the East India Company was unswerving. The bustle of the docks, the crowds made up of merchants, ship-owners and shipbuilders in many ways had been her formal schooling. Her father had become a widower and a father in the same moment Elizabeth’s mother died in childbirth. But he had accepted God’s will and brought up his daughter with a reverence for England’s commerce that probably, if he considered it at all, rivalled his sense of duty to the Almighty. He was proud of his reputation and his business prowess and his daughter was an integral part of what he had built.
There was always something new to discover on the docks and Elizabeth had grown up with London as her classroom. To see London through its ships was to witness the true England, the nation which had become an empire because its fleet was bold, its sailors experienced, and its seafaring identity one which had been constant throughout the country’s existence. The new century that was just two years old seemed so very modern compared to the previous one. While it was true that Great Britain’s King George III was regrettably mad, English eyes kept their focus on the goings-on across the Channel. There, the French bloodbath of the previous years had seemingly been staunched by the rise to power of a man named Napoleon; his ambitions kept politicians and military leaders throughout Europe and Russia vigilant. She thought of Napoleon often, as did most British, but Great Britain itself seemed to go on as it always had. Napoleon had been heard to dismiss the British as a nation of shopkeepers, but Elizabeth’s father, instead of being insulted by the reputed remark, had applauded it. Britain, he told Elizabeth, would continue to thrive as long as its shopkeepers, merchants, and the East India Company continued to be the backbone of the Empire.
It seemed to Elizabeth that surely all the world passed through London by way of the docks. When she was a child, she had thought of the docks as London’s doors, opening wide to let in the ships of all nations and their products. She remembered her father laughing at her words, but with pride, as if she had happened upon knowledge beyond her years.
As she made her way to her father’s office, it was the building, not the eyes of male admirers, along the dock that held her in rapt attention. The West India docks, now nearing the end of their construction, would soon be bearing the wealth of the world as it was unloaded from the ships; the docks would showcase the sugar, tea, grain and the other products of other places. They were a new mercantile adventure, one which bore close observation. Her father was a vigorous supporter of the enterprise and his hard work and advocacy were poised to enrich the commercial fortunes of London and also make Henry Hargrave a wealthy man.
Having reached her father’s office, a three-storey building located in the pulsing heart of the commercial sector of the docks, Elizabeth opened the door and disappeared from view, unaware that one keen pair of eyes in particular had been following her closely. The gentleman looked at the sign above the entrance way. His
eyebrows rose. Hargrave and Daughter, East India Company, was neatly lettered, boldly announcing to all who passed by that here, on England’s newest docks, was a man of business who apparently did not know that women’s brains were not suited for the intricate workings of commerce. The Earl of Strathmore, intrigued by this revelation, bade farewell to his companions and continued on his way, his thoughts spinning like the silken strands of a spider’s web as he pondered the potential of this development.
Inside the office, Elizabeth went directly to her desk. Mr George had already arrived and had brewed tea.
“Good morning, Miss Hargrave,” he said, formal as always as he poured her a cup.
“Good morning, Mr George,” she replied. Mr George was her father’s right-hand man, assisting him in the many aspects of his work as a merchant. There was nothing that Henry Hargrave could request of him that Mr George would not accede to and her father trusted his assistant completely. Mr George had come into the business by a most curious process. Henry Hargrave regarded slavery as an abomination; he was a vigorous supporter of Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the institution but for a few days in the late 1790s, he had been a slave-owner. That was when he had seen Mr George on the auction block, the proud black man with the accent of Jamaica, bearing the scars of past whippings, offered for sale to whomever had the price. Offended by the practice, Henry Hargrave had outbid every man there. He had brought Mr George to his place of business and offered him his freedom and a job. The dignified young man had been wary at first but he soon realised, when his manumission papers were in his hand, that Henry Hargrave had been serious.
Mr George soon learned the business of the docks and he had an advantage that another assistant would have lacked. Mr George knew commerce from its seamy underbelly. He was aware of the graft and corruption, the evil and greed that ruled many of London’s merchants and nowhere was this side of the city more visible than in the transactions that took place within the naval outposts of Great Britain. If Mr George regarded his former owner as naïve, he never said so, but Elizabeth knew that Mr George, unlike her father, had no illusions about his fellow man. He had seen too much.
“Is Papa already out?” she asked, sipping her tea and appreciating the generous serving of sugar which Mr George had added. Sugar was not merely a sweetener that added flavour to the beverage; it was another of the products of the docks which travelled from ship to port to customer, expanding the profits of the canny merchants who sold it. Elizabeth had learned to her sums upon receipts and bills of lading; geography had been a lesson taught according to the flags under which the world’s ships sailed; she perfected her French, mastered German, and acquired Spanish as a result of the business which passed through her father’s office. She was less adept at embroidery, watercolours, and playing the harp than other young ladies of genteel upbringing who sought to impress their prospective suitors with their feminine accomplishments, but adding a column of numbers in her head, arguing costs in a merchant’s native tongue, and knowing which ship carried which cargo were attributes prized by her father. Henry Hargrave had no notion of how he should rear a marriageable daughter, and there was no woman at home to guide him in these arcane concepts, so he did the best he could.
Her father did not know that there were times when Elizabeth wondered if her zeal for business should have been muted in favour of the quest for a husband. At twenty-five, well past the age when most Englishwomen were married and had started a family, she was aware that she was decidedly a spinster in the ‘old maid’ category, on the shelf and unlikely to entice matrimonial prospects. Any young gentlemen she knew, such as Nathaniel Woodstock, she counted as friends or colleagues in business, wholly separate from the work of Love. But it was not something she could discuss with her father, who saw her as the heir to his business, and not as someone’s potential wife.
The door opened. Elizabeth looked up from her ledger and Mr George’s head turned from the teapot.
“Good day to you both,” said the gentleman who had entered. He brought with him a sense of action rather than leisure and his complexion gave evidence of an active life spent outdoors that seemed at odds with his exquisitely-tailored garments, the cut of his coat, and his aristocratic bearing, which bespoke, even before he gave his name, of a lineage that was familiar to Debrett’s New Peerage. “Might I have a word with Mr Hargrave?”
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BONUS CHAPTER 2:
THE DUKE’S SECRET DESIRE
ONE
The heat in the room was stifling. The windows were closed to prevent the air, and whatever contagions were borne upon it, into the sickroom. But the patient enclosed within the bed sheets seemed entirely unaware of the temperature; he was buried in a mount of blankets and still he shivered.
“Bart!” he called out in a weak voice.
“I’m here, old chap.”
Lord Bartholomew Granger, the Duke of Middleton, Baron Danver’s commanding officer and lifelong friend, came closer to his bed.
“This is on fine pickle you’ve landed yourself in,” he told his friend with a forced smile. “You are not going to let such a small thing as an infection stop you from returning to England are you?”
“We both know, I won’t survive this darn fever,” Jason Danver responded. He started coughing violently. The Duke reached for the cup of water next to the bed and helped his friend take a sip.
“Not if you don’t take better care of yourself.”
“Old chap, I need you to take care of Arya,” Danver said faintly.
“You’re the only one whom I can trust to put her safety first.”
When Middleton said nothing, the Baron repeated his request.
“I will no longer be here to offer her my protection. A protection she sorely needs.” Once again Baron Danver was racked with a persistent cough.
He took a couple of deep breaths and continued his plea, “She’s an innocent in this nest of vipers. Her family . . . they see her as a pawn and they’ve used her as such. Her mother, while she was alive, never had any influence on the decisions that the Maharajah Sangvitani Singh made, and as for that brother of hers, he’s as duplicitous as the devil himself.”
His eyes, feverish but intent locked with Bartholomew’s. He gripped the Duke’s arm and held on firmly as he whispered, “Promise me that you’ll look after Arya when I’m gone. I ask you this on the memory and strength of our friendship.”
The Duke’s heart constricted, his mind still refusing to accept the inevitable. Nevertheless, as his friend continued to stare at him, he finally gave him the answer he was after.
“Yes. Yes, of course I will, but you mustn’t give up.”
“No need to pretend. I’m dying and everyone knows it… Arya knows it too.”
“Where is she?”
“She can’t be allowed in the sickroom. You see . . . ” a frail smile touched the wan lips of the wasting Baron. “We’re . . . she’s going to have our child. It’s very early yet, but nothing must be done to put the unborn baby in harm’s way. He’ll be the heir to my estate; he must be kept safe. I have nowhere else to turn; no one else but you understands the delicacy of our role in India.” He began to cough in earnest now, his body racked by the spasms.
Bartholomew bent down to support his friend, bracing his back so that he could sustain the cough without collapsing. “Arya . . . I have tried to be a good husband, and she has tried to be a good wife, but the odds have been against us. She’s half English and half-Indian; both sides regarded her with suspicion. She’s the dearest girl, but when I’m gone she’ll be alone. I need you to give me your word Bart.”
“Yes, of course. You have my word.”
The Baron smiled, relief colouring his features.
“The two of you have always gotten on well; I knew that I could count on you to do right by her. And by my child.”
“Yes, of course,” the Duke reassured him again.
The Baron fell back upon the bed, exhausted but relieved.
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“Thank you. There are no words to express my gratitude. You’ve always been there when I needed you.” Danver waved weakly for the glass by his bed; Bartholomew handed it to him. Danver drank deeply then handed it back to his friend.
“There’s poppy in it; I’ll sleep soon, and very soon, I’ll sleep forever.” He closed his eyes and seemed to drift off. But soon he opened his eyes again.
“You’ll make sure that my child knows who I was, wont you old chap? If it is a boy, he must follow the family tradition: Eton, then Oxford, then a commission. God knows if the Empire will still be here when he reaches manhood; all these rebellions and rival potentates only harm India. But duty comes before all. You will make sure that my son knows this?” the Baron asked urgently.
“Yes.”
“He must do his duty. As I have done mine. As Arya has done hers. You will impress that upon him as he grows to manhood. He must do his duty as a British subject.”
“Yes.”
The Baron sighed. “I am counting on you,” he whispered, his voice fading as his eyelids closed.
Bartholomew remained standing until his friend had fallen asleep. He stood in silent salute to a fallen brother at arms, tears streaming down his cheeks.
After the Battle of Delhi during the Second Anglo-Maratha War the crown had seen a need to ensure its interest were being represented accurately. It had sent the Bartholomew Granger and Jason Danver to create political alliances and relationships in India. Alliances beyond that of the East India Company. It had been four long years. During that time Bartholomew had inherited the Duchy of Middleton, when his father died. The Duke had been dreaming of England for the last six months. His duty and estate calling to him. Both men’s commissions were coming to the end and they had been in serious talk about leaving the colonies together. That dream was now dead, Jason Danver would not live to see his homeland again. The Duke took a deep breath, clicked his heels together, bowed, turned around and walked out of the room.