It was on an afternoon in February as she was going upstairs to rest before the evening’s performance when Madame Goubert came into the living room to tell her, “A gentleman to see you, your Ladyship.”
She stood up. “I was just going to have my rest. Can he come back another time?”
“I’m afraid not!” It was Sir Howard Blake who said this. He had followed the stout Madame Goubert in and now he stood gazing at Mary with a smile. “I’ve come many miles to see you and I will not be put off.”
Mary returned his smile. Madame Goubert looked searchingly at them both, then ambled out of the room like a large female bear.
Howard, looking healthier and more handsome than she’d ever seen him, came to her and took her hands in his. He said, “I’ve been in Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Berlin. But in none of those places have I seen anyone as lovely as you!”
She smiled. “You have picked up the Continental style of flattery!”
The young man shook his head. “I cannot and do not wish to live without you.”
Mary said, “At last I can tell you there’s no need to!” She moved into his arms and their lips met.
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 1977 by Clarissa Ross
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7429-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7429-0
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7428-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7428-3
Cover art © istock.com/Miroslaw Oslizlo
Wine of Passion
Clarissa Ross
Avon, Massachusetts
For Doctor William Baxter, friend and physician.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
It was a day in June of 1835. The blustering sailorman, King William the Fourth, occupied the throne of England. Even though he was coarse and rowdy, and often in his cups by noonday, he was far more popular than the Georges who had preceeded him.
Late this afternoon two girls scampered across the fields to a hovel on the banks of the river Wey, about a mile from the estate of Canby Hall. Joy Canby and her friend Nancy Gray had ventured out in their long, frilled dresses with ruffled sleeves, not knowing a thunder storm was on the way. But by the time they reached the witch’s hovel the sky had darkened as though it were night.
They hesitated before the ancient shack where the old woman of Gypsy blood made a good living selling healing lotions, and offering love potions, and magic amulets. But her chief source of revenue was fortunetelling! The one gleaming item in the decrepit hovel was a crystal ball, carefully wrapped in black velvet, which she stared into intently and told her customer’s future for a few pence.
Nancy, the daughter of Sir Ronald Gray, showed fear on her freckled face as a sudden wind ruffled her auburn hair. She asked Joy, “Do you think the witch is bringing on this storm? Dare we go inside?”
Joy, a precocious fifteen year old, showed derision on her lovely, heart-shaped face. She brushed back a lock of her flaxen hair, and with her blue eyes full of reproach, she told Nancy, “We’ve not come all this distance to turn back! It’s just a silly old storm!”
“It’s almost as dark as night!” Nancy protested nervously. “And it’s suddenly so silent!”
“That’s the way thunder storms come,” Joy said. “We’d best knock on the door and see if she’s home. We don’t want to be caught out here when the downpour begins.”
Nancy shivered. “I’m frightened!”
“Of the Gypsy?”
“They say she talks with ghosts! That she can evoke the Devil right in her hut!”
“Then he can’t be fussy where he goes,” Joy replied in disgust. “I should expect the Devil to fancy some fine estate, like that of my father’s.”
Nancy held onto Joy’s arm. “What are you going to ask?”
“About our future! Who we’ll marry!” Joy said with a show of worldly wisdom. “That’s most important for a girl!”
A flash of lightning, followed by a loud roll of thunder, made Nancy cry out, “Let’s go inside quickly and get it over with!”
“You’re a fraidy-cat,” Joy reproved her young friend. But she was secretly afraid as she tentatively knocked on the hovel’s door.
There was a shuffling sound from inside, and the door was opened by a bent, withered crone. She peered out peevishly. “Go away!” she snapped.
“We have come to have our fortunes told,” Joy said.
The lightning flashed, and the old Gypsy smiled and revealed toothless gums. “You’ve come at a bad time. The Devil is riding the sky. I want to enjoy the show!”
Joy said, “We will pay you well.”
“Will you?” The old woman showed more interest.
“Yes,” Joy said and went on brazenly, “If you don’t tell our fortunes now we won’t be back. There is a woman on the Portsmouth Road who reads palms and we’ll go to her!”
“She’s a fake!” the old Gypsy shrilled.
“I have heard different,” Joy said in the same bold manner, belying her innocent appearance. “I have a golden sovereign given me on my thirteenth birthday. If you read our fortunes it shall be yours!”
“A golden sovereign!” the old Gypsy said with delight. “Come in, children! I will not turn you away! No indeed!”
The storm outside broke in full fury as she led them into the dark, fetid hovel and seated them at a rough, small table in the middle of the room. She vanished for a moment in a dark corner, and Joy and Nancy exchanged apprehensive glances. Then the old woman returned, and stood across from them at the table. She lifted the dark, velvet cloth to reveal her shimmering crystal globe. “There it is my dearies! The magic crystal!”
A flash of blue lightning crossed the brown, wrinkled face of the old Gypsy. Thunder rumbled as she sat with the crystal cupped in her claw-like hands. She faced the two awed girls.
“Now, my dears, the sovereign!” The ancient one said and held out her thin, dirty hand.
Joy hesitated. “I’ll pay afterwards,” she decided, fearful that the old woman might take the money and send them packing.
The claw-like hand remained open. “No sovereign and there’ll be no fortune!”
Joy gave Nancy a worried look and fumbled in the pocket of her dress for the sovereign. The Gypsy snatched the gold piece, and hid it in the folds of her tattered dress.
“Tell us who we’ll marry,” Joy said.
The rheumy eyes of the old woman showed a gleam of humor. “Whom you’ll marry, is it? I’d think it a deal more important to know who you’ll love!”
“One always loves the man one marries,” Nancy said with an air of adult experience which ill-fitted her.
“Indeed!” The Gypsy said with derision. “I wouldn’t vouch for that!” And giving Joy a sharp look, she said, “You are old Sir Richard’s girl?”
“He is not old!” Joy said defiantly though she knew her father did have white hair.
“Three score if he’s a day,” the Gypsy scoffed. “And your mother, the Lady Susan, is still less than forty! Sold to the old man as a child bride! It was a scandal!”
Joy said angrily, “They are happy! We are a good family! And if you have naught to say but wicked things about my parents I’ll have
my sovereign back.”
The old woman cackled with delight as the thunder, lightning, and rain continued. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll tell you two a few things about your futures. You’d do well to remember what I say. Years from now you’ll recall old Peg predicted it!”
Joy said, “Then please begin!”
“You are used to ordering about the lackies at Canby Hall, my pretty Miss,” the woman said with sarcasm.
“I’m used to being treated politely,” Joy replied.
The woman rubbed the end of her thin nose and studied the crystal. She said, “The fires glow deep within the glass and I see many things. You, young Canby, will love fully and marry often!”
“Are you sure?” Joy said excitedly.
The old woman cackled. “All too soon you’ll know the meaning of lust! And, like your mother, you will marry when you are seventeen!”
Joy gasped and glanced at Nancy, who had gone pale. Joy said, “That means I’ll be married in two years?”
“And loved before that,” the old Gypsy said.
“By whom? My husband?”
“Let that be a surprise,” the old woman said. “The facts about your marriages suffice. I see that you will have three husbands and one great love!”
Joy’s mouth gaped. “Three husbands!”
“And a great love,” old Peg repeated.
Joy was shocked. “It can’t be true. I intend to fall in love and marry and look at no other man until I die!”
Nancy spoke up impatiently, “What of me?”
The thunder and lightning had passed and now it was only raining heavily. The Gypsy studied the crystal again, and told the auburn-haired Nancy, “I see a marriage that is bad and ends in disaster. But then there is a marriage which will turn out well!”
“I’m to have two husbands?” Nancy said with disbelief.
“I think she’s a fake!” Joy declared.
The Gypsy stood up and pointed a skinny forefinger at her. “You will live to regret those rash words. I have given you each the pattern of your lives. And as you live them you will see that I was right.”
Joy worried, “How can you so separate love and marriage?”
“You will understand when you grow older,” the Gypsy said. “Now the rain has halted and it would be wise if you both started on your way back to Canby Hall.”
Joy stood up. “I don’t think we had our sovereign’s worth. I shall complain to my father!”
Old Peg gathered up her crystal, and with righteous wrath informed them, “Don’t threaten me! One word to your father and I shall place you under the curse of the black hoptoad!”
The sound of it was frightening. Joy asked, “What sort of curse is it?”
The old woman relished telling her, “You and your friend will have big, black warts all over your faces. No man would take you in his bed!”
Nancy pulled at Joy’s sleeve. “I’m terrified! I want to get out of here!”
“All right,” Joy said, and they turned and raced outside — followed by the sound of Peg’s eerie laughter.
The sky was gray, and the fields wet but the rain had ended. Joy turned to look back bitterly at the hovel and say, “I think she is truly a witch! She robbed me of my sovereign and told us only a lot of nonsense!”
Nancy hurried along at her side. “I don’t know. Maybe she was right. Maybe we will have a lot of husbands!”
By the time she and fourteen-year-old Nancy reached the great stone castle known as Canby Hall, the family were gathering for dinner. Joy’s father, a dignified, white haired man, was holding court in the living room, which was lined with life-size paintings of his ancestors. He was with his elder son, Roger, and his younger son, James. Another young man was also with them.
In the early summer of each year, Sir Richard and Lady Canby moved from their house in Berkeley Square to an equally imposing one, in Surrey on the River Wey, and not far from Guildford. The country estate was in an area of lovely fields with forests, heaths, and delightful streams. Joy’s older brother, Roger, an athletic twenty-three, attended Oxford; but always came to the country house on his holidays. James, her younger brother and her favorite, was twenty. He had already been expelled from college for his wild escapades. To the annoyance of his parents he now was living the life of a city dandy — spending much of his time at the gaming houses or the horse races. Joy found him just wonderful!
Lady Susan had been seated with a sherry in her hand. She rose, and came to the reception hall to greet Joy and her friend. Lady Susan was slender and still attractive, but nervous in manner. She studied the two girls and declared, “You look like urchins! Upstairs with you and be fresh and clean for dinner! Sir Richard will be furious if you attend the table in such a bedraggled state!”
They rushed upstairs to find Jenny, a young, pretty maid, turning down their beds. In uniform and cap, Jenny was not much more than fifteen; she had been employed at the mansion for two years.
She glanced up from patting the pillows and told them, “You two are late today!”
Joy grimaced. “We can’t do anything without a lecture!”
The maid said, “Be lucky you have parents to care. I have only the housekeeper to order me about! And she’s a true dragon!”
Nancy said, “I’m a visitor and I shouldn’t have to take orders from anyone.” She slipped out of her frilled dress to reveal voluminous petticoats.
Joy had already taken off her dress, and as she stood in her slips she poured water in an enamel basin to wash her face, prior to putting on a fresh dress. She splashed on the water, and asked Jenny, “What’s the difference in being in love and being married?”
Jenny halted at the door wide-eyed. “What makes you ask a question like that, my lady?”
Joy groped for a towel and dried her face. “I’ve been told it’s not the same thing!”
Jenny said, “You shouldn’t listen to such talk. Love ought to lead to marriage, and that’s a fact!”
“Have you ever been in love, Jenny?” Joy asked putting on another dress.
The pretty, black-haired maid’s cheeks went crimson. “What a question to ask!” She hurried out.
Nancy said, “Nobody really wants to tell us anything. No wonder we’re due to grow up and make mistakes and have a lot of husbands!”
“Silly Gypsy talk!” Joy said and laughed, and after a slight pause Nancy joined in the laughter.
They went downstairs, and dutifully presented themselves to their elders. Lady Susan eyed them and decided, “Well, now you look more presentable!”
Joy’s oldest brother, Roger, came to her and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s nice to see you again, and also your friend, Nancy.”
But it was the jovial, good-looking James whose swaggering approach made Nancy blush. He chucked her under the chin, and placed a kiss on her cheek and said, “Why should I pay attention to Joy when she has such a charming girl friend here?”
The other young man with the curly brown hair, named Ben Weston, stepped across to Joy and said, “Joy is not my sister so I can pay her full tribute!” He kissed her square on the mouth, then placed an affectionate arm around her.
Roger said, “I can’t believe the pace she is growing!”
Ben, his arm still around Joy, told Sir Richard, “I warrant, sir, it will not be long before you and your good lady are offering this gal at the altar!”
Lady Susan showed horror. “Joy married so young! Never!”
Her husband, Sir Richard, laughed heartily. “I’m grateful you didn’t feel so twenty years ago when you married me. You were not that much older than our Joy!”
“Times have changed,” Lady Susan told him.
James, standing by Nancy, smiled and said, “Times may change but nature doesn’t! The young studs will soon be showing up to pay the girls court, I’ll be bound!”
Joy found dinner a dull affair except for the fact that James’s bosom friend, Ben Weston, smiled at her often. And once, when he’d made a witt
y comment, he actually winked at her. She enjoyed this intimate gesture, and felt certain no one else at the table had noticed.
Following dinner they gathered in the great living room again. Her mother performed on the pianoforte, which was followed by talk of the virtues and failings of Lord Wellington. Drinks and food were passed, and Joy saw that Jenny, the pretty maid, assisted in this task. Ben Weston was smiling warmly at her.
The clock in the reception hall struck the chimes of nine, the customary signal for Joy and Nancy to say their good-nights. The elders usually stayed below for a while longer, then retired. Some would read in their rooms or write letters, but the order of things at Canby Hall was patterned on ‘early to bed and early to rise.’
Once Joy and Nancy reached the quiet of their bedroom with its lighted candle awaiting them on the dresser, Joy turned to Nancy and asked, “Did you see what Jenny did?”
Nancy’s freckled face was all innocence. “I saw her passing the cakes.”
“Is that all you saw?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you see her brush herself ever so close against Ben Weston,” Joy said, explaining by moving close by her friend and brushing against her.
Nancy stared at her. “Why would she do that?”
Joy rolled her eyes. “You are the innocent, I do declare! She was trying to attract his attention!”
“Why?”
“I think they know each other,” Joy said, with suspicion. “I’ll bet they met somewhere.”
“Well, Ben Weston has been down here with your brother, James, nearly every weekend,” Nancy reasoned.
“And somehow he’s met Jenny,” Joy said. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have rubbed against him!”
Nancy frowned. “She’s a maid. Maybe she makes the bed in the cottage where Ben Weston sleeps when he stays here?”
Joy’s lovely blue eyes opened wide. “I believe you’ve come upon the truth! She’s met him while making his bed!”
Vintage Love Page 158