The Wicked Guardian

by Vanessa Gray

  Marianna’s eyes flashed anger that Primula could see even from the window. She paid no heed to the stouter woman who descended the chaise steps in her daughter’s wake. Benedict, his curiosity awakened by his sister’s posture at the window, exerted himself to turn his chair to afford him a better view.

  “Good God! Marianna!” he exclaimed.

  “Exactly,” said Primula. “Now, Benedict, let’s get this encounter done with.”

  “Primula,” said Benedict in hollow tones, “I wish you will not let your impulsive temper—”

  “Pooh!” said Primula. “Sit down. You’re in no state to be marching around the room.”

  “I wasn’t marching!” said Lord Choate indignantly. With a swift alteration in his mood he said, with appeal in his voice, “I can’t see that woman! Prim, get rid of her, do! Tell her I’ll see her in London. Tell her—”

  “Anything?” said Primula quizzically.

  Too late Benedict saw the opening he had given her.

  “Now, Primula...”

  But it was too late for either of them to set their ideas in motion. Marianna Morton had swept into the inn, her mother following slowly, as though reluctant to bear any share of her daughter’s actions.

  At that precise moment, Clare, having failed to find refreshment in her troubled slumber, was descending the stairs from the upper floor, and came face to face with Marianna.

  “So!” cried Marianna Morton in a carrying voice. “Harry Rowse was right! How is it I find you here?”

  “Perhaps because for once Rowse told the truth,” said Clare, stung to retort. “Although how he knew we were here passes my understanding.”

  “No thanks to you that I learn that my betrothed is lying at death’s door. You did not see fit to send word to me. I find that most inexcusable.”

  Mrs. Morton had come in behind Marianna, and heard the last of this exchange. She had the darkest fears of the probable outcome of her daughter’s temper. In spite of the strongest representations she had made only a few days ago to Marianna, her daughter was in no way attempting to bridle her tongue.

  “Marianna...” said Mrs. Morton, without effect. Marianna had eyes only for Clare. “You little schemer!” she accused. “To find you here in an inn, with Lord Choate, alone, passes all decency. Let me tell you, my girl, that your devious, deceitful plot will not get you what you want.”

  “All I want,” interrupted Mrs. Morton, realizing that more strenuous measures were necessary, “is for you to lower your voice and not shout your affairs to the world.”

  Marianna did not respond, but when she spoke again her voice was a degree lower. “A likely tale Rowse told—that you had eloped to Gretna Green with Ferguson! A mere excuse! I warn you that you cannot deceive me as to your true purpose.”

  Clare was past the point of caring about what she said. She had lived through a strenuous few days and nights, watching at the bedside of her guardian, rocked to the core by the realization that she loved him totally, hopelessly. Now Marianna Morton appeared, bothersome as a buzzing fly, and no more important. Clare even made a small gesture, as of brushing away a gnat, before she said in a quiet voice, “I think you are mistaken, Miss Morton. Once again. I had no plan in coming here, except—”

  “Except to bring Benedict to think he had compromised you so that he must marry you. I warn you that he will not change his mind. He loves me, and he has given his word—”

  “As to that,” said Clare meticulously, “I could not say. Whether he loves you or not must be his affair. But I do venture to wonder whether you are in fact as attached to him as you would wish people to think.”

  “What!”

  “You have come rushing out from Bath, under the impression that he was injured, and yet,” pointed out Clare, “you have not yet asked how he is faring.”

  Marianna said shrewishly, “He was not hurt badly. Rowse said so!”

  Clare said reasonably, “Since Rowse was responsible for Benedict’s accident, then you must be sure that the truth is not in him. But I think you said ‘lying at death’s door’?”

  Just then the outer door opened and Ned Fenton stepped in from the yard. So Marianna and her mother had brought an escort with them!

  “Oh, Miss Penryck!” exclaimed Ned. “Glad to see you’re here. How’s Benedict?”

  Mariana, probably ashamed of her own lapse in the matter, turned on Benedict’s friend. “Not very badly injured, after all,” she cried. “For this young person was here to beguile his convalescence!”

  “Marianna,” said Mrs. Morton severely, “that is more than enough.”

  Clare had been too sorely tried. She burst into tears.

  “He was nearly d-dead!” she said tearfully.

  “I doubt it!” said Marianna stoutly, even though she was beginning to think she had in truth made a mistake.

  “But no matter what you say, the fact remains that you and Benedict have spent several days together in an inn, unknown to your friends, and without anyone to lend you credit.” She eyed Clare carefully, as though deciding where to plant the mortal dart. “I wonder what Lady Lindsay will say to this escapade of yours!”

  During this last speech, Lady Lindsay appeared silently in the doorway from the private parlor. None of the others saw her, nor had they seen the parlor door open just after their arrival. But Ned Fenton, not so bent on watching Clare, now caught sight of Primula. “Then Benedict was in danger!” he exclaimed.

  Lady Lindsay stepped into the room. “Oh, yes, he was,” she said calmly. “And he has dear Clare to thank that he is alive now.”

  Her remarks worked powerfully on Marianna, reducing her to openmouthed astonishment. Mrs. Morton found her tongue. “Well, miss, you see how right I was. Your tongue has at last got you into trouble that you can’t smile your way out of.”

  Marianna recovered her speech. “How long,” she demanded of Lady Lindsay, “have you been here?”

  Primula, enjoying herself and taking advantage of the opportunity so neatly handed to her, smiled sweetly and said, “I confess, Marianna, your preoccupation with the seamy side of life gives me cause to wonder. Your upbringing, I know, has been of the best, for I have the greatest respect for your mother. But I cannot help but wonder at you! It is beyond imagining that there could be anything of impropriety in the situation here. Benedict at death’s door, his life saved by his ward.”

  Ned turned to Marianna and said with unaccustomed bluntness, “What an opinion you have of Choate! I wonder you want to marry such a man, if you think him capable of such ramshackle behavior!”

  Primula, not relenting at the sight of Marianna’s appalled features as she realized the grave mistake she had made, added, “In response to your question, although I do not admit your right to ask it, I have been here with Clare almost from the start. And—I tell you this only for my dear Clare’s protection against your malicious tongue—during the hours before I came, the physician will bear witness that Benedict was totally unconscious, incapable of moving a finger.” She surveyed Marianna with a calculated look. “I don’t look forward to calling you ‘sister,’ I must tell you.”

  Marianna tried valiantly to regain her position. “Had I known, Lady Lindsay, that you were here—”

  Benedict’s voice interrupted her. He was leaning against the doorframe, and his pallor spoke eloquently of his trials. But his drawl was strong enough as he said with a trace of amused contempt, “I had never realized until now, Marianna, how very vulgar you are!”

  Marianna blanched as though he had struck her in the face. She had whistled him down to the wind, she knew, and a chill descended on her. She searched wildly for words that would mend all, but her mother forestalled her.

  “Choate, I cannot say how glad I am to see you so much recovered. We were informed falsely on several counts, but my faith in you—little though you may regard it, and I could not blame you—never wavered.” She shot a dark glance toward her daughter.

  Marianna lifted her chin. “I sha
ll give you no cause in the future, Choate, to question my devotion to you—”

  “No!” Mrs. Morton delivered herself of the monosyllable with force. “I shall no longer countenance this marriage. Marianna, I have watched you riding roughshod over everyone who comes within your sphere, and while I am inured to such treatment, I feel that I must make amends to Choate, and to Miss Penryck, for your behavior. I shall not agree to a union with so little prospect of success. Come, Marianna. I am thinking that we might tour Italy this winter...”

  Mrs. Morton ushered her stunned daughter out of the inn. She did not look back. Ned Fenton, reading Mrs. Morton’s mood correctly, disappeared to order the coach readied for the return journey. Those Mrs. Morton had left in her wake stood in a way dazed, as the waves of the affair subsided slowly. From the outside floated back to them the final word from Mrs. Morton. “It will be my decision, Marianna, and you will remember that I shall brook no further impertinence from you...”

  Lady Lindsay breathed a huge sigh, composed of satisfaction and relief. But Clare’s eyes were on Benedict. “Oh, my dear sir, you must not stand so long. Here, lean on me, let me help you back to your chair. You have recovered so marvelously that you must not jeopardize your health...”

  Shute sprang quickly to Clare’s aid—Lady Lindsay suspected rightly he had been hovering just out of sight, but not at all out of hearing, in the hall—and together they got Benedict to his chair. His bloodless features told the cost of his exertion. Clare dismissed Shute and watched Benedict. She poured a glass of port, and urged him, “Mr. Otten says you must drink a lot of this to replace the blood you lost.”

  “He said nothing about the effect on my head,” complained Benedict. But the look in his eyes softened.

  After a long time, she ventured, “Are you heartbroken, sir? Your betrothal...”

  “Not so much that I can’t be cured.” His smile was sweet and tender, and she read a light in his eyes that, this time, she interpreted aright.

  “Will you, my dear ward, provide my cure?” His gaze was quizzical, and oddly uncertain. He was rewarded by the sight of tears slipping down her cheeks. “Now, my dear watering pot, if you do not wish it...”

  “Oh, no, Benedict, I wish it above all things! I just c-can’t stop crying, that’s all!”

  Lady Lindsay, lingering with purpose in the hall, heard what she had longed to hear. She closed the parlor door and left them alone. Remembering the glowing look on her brother’s face, an expression she had never expected to see, she smiled to herself. This wedding would not be postponed, she would wager.

  Clare’s year of mourning would be over next June ... Lady Lindsay chuckled. It was going to be a long, long year!