To Make a Marriage

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  But now, this complicating pregnancy and all the anger and distance and mistrust it had engendered between them had ruined any chance they had to make a marriage together. This was horrible—she could hardly stand to admit it, but she feared she loved her husband. She must never tell him. What would be the gain? None. And yet, seeing him today … Lord, she had almost forgot how handsome and sensual he was, with his thick black hair and eyes every bit as dark. He simply smoldered with animal vitality. It was the oddest thing to Victoria, that she could want him so much and yet be so afraid of him and so wary, as she must be.

  “Whoa! Hold up there!”

  Out in the alleyway, the wagon’s driver calling out to his team popped Victoria back to the moment and the garden. Happy to be pulled out of the morass of her emotions, she willfully surrendered herself to the moment and the singing birds in the trees. Smiling languidly, lulled by the sunshine’s slanting warmth, she breathed in deeply of the richly scented air, redolent with a commingling of sweet-scented flowers and moist earth and the sharper tang of the Savannah River, only several blocks away.

  In so many ways, this house … she turned her head to stare at its gracious outline … felt more welcoming to her than had River’s End. Just thinking about the graceful white-columned house where she’d lived most of her life unraveled a thread of sadness inside Victoria. She’d believed she would always be a child of that plantation home. Always. She had so many fond memories of it. But the best, most exciting memories were those of the elaborate dinners and balls—suspended, of course, during the years of the war—her parents had held there, the latter ones in her honor as she’d grown into a young lady. A young lady who had disgraced herself and her family, in short order.

  Realizing she’d traveled backward emotionally to troubled times and thoughts, Victoria forced herself to concentrate on today and this new place in which she found herself. This house, with its brick solidness, the new-wood smell inside and the fine wallpapers and the stately furnishings, she liked very much. Or was it more because her family wasn’t here to question her every move? That could certainly be a part of it, she acknowledged. Along those lines, she’d have to get word to Jubal that she was no longer at River’s End, so he could tell Miss Cicely. Getting information to and from her would certainly be harder now, Victoria realized, since she didn’t have access to the swamp. And it wasn’t as if Jubal could come here. Although, Victoria had to admit, she wouldn’t be surprised if Miss Cicely already knew what had happened this morning at River’s End and even knew where Victoria was now.

  And Spencer. How to get around him to do those things she needed to do? She couldn’t even tell him why she’d come. But even if she could, she wondered, would she? She wasn’t certain she could trust him, not with this delicately balanced situation. He didn’t know how things worked here, how people thought. This wasn’t England where he and his pompous ilk ruled—

  “Why, here you are, Victoria.”

  Startled, gasping, she pressed a hand against her chest, over her pounding heart, as she turned and stared into her husband’s face. “Mercy, Your Grace, you nearly frightened the life out of me.”

  His black eyes studied her. “Not for the first time today, I’d wager.”

  Guilt had Victoria looking down at her hands in her lap. “And you’d win that wager.”

  “At any rate, I’m glad I found you out here alone, Victoria. I have some questions for you, as you can well imagine.”

  “Yes. I can.” She intuited the thick vein of anger pulsing under his almost pleasant tone of voice and feared her frightened-bird’s heart would flutter right out of her chest.

  “Good.”

  When he didn’t say anything else, Victoria finally raised her gaze to meet his. To her surprise, his attention was not fixed on her. Instead, and standing next to the bench upon which she sat, he’d hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his dark, close-fitting trousers, settled his weight on one leg, and was smiling as he studied the garden. “I looked in the parlor where you told me you’d be. Of course, you were not. I half believed you had again made off without telling me. That seems to be a bad habit of yours, this leading me on merry chases. But then I found your Rose; and she said you’d come outside.”

  “Rosanna,” Victoria corrected. Her emotions a mixture of hesitance and wariness, she added: “And now you’ve found me. Here I am.”

  “It’s not that simple, Victoria.”

  “Isn’t it, Your Grace?”

  “Spencer. And no, it is not. Tell me why you left. And I mean England.”

  He meant to go directly for her jugular. “I—I told you I wanted to come home to my mother. And that is exactly where you found me. So you see? It is that simple.”

  “If it were that simple, you would not have instructed my servants not to inform me of your leaving.”

  “I did that only because I hoped to be back before you found out I was gone.” The truth just popped out of her mouth, leaving her wide-eyed with guilt.

  “Are you telling me you meant to return? That this jaunt of yours is nothing more than a quick trip home to visit your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  His smile became a quick slash across his lips. “You disappoint me, Victoria, with your lies.”

  “Lies?” Yes, she was lying, but for a good reason. Still, the audacity of the man bristled her like a porcupine. “I am not lying—”

  “But you are. The letter you received, Victoria? Who was that from?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Oh, dear God, he knows about the letter. The shock took the fight and the breath right out of Victoria. She clutched at the wrought-iron edge of the bench seat under her and stared wide-eyed up at him.

  “It’s all there on your face, Victoria. You did not think I knew about that, nor did you wish for me to know about it. We both know why, too.”

  “No you don’t … Spencer. You really don’t.”

  “Then enlighten me.”

  Though she expected the angry fire in his dark, dark eyes to burn her to a cinder at any second, Victoria raised her chin a proud notch. “I cannot.”

  She saw a muscle in his jaw working. “Under normal circumstances, Victoria, I would not inquire as to your personal correspondence. However, this situation is not the normal one. That said, the letter you received at Wetherington’s Point two days before you left: Who wrote it and what did it say? I cannot put it more plainly than that.”

  “How do you know so much about this letter, Spencer? I really cannot fathom—”

  “For God’s sake, Victoria—servants gossip. You know that. You’ve had them all your life.”

  He was right. How stupid of me. Angry now, more with herself than the servants, but nevertheless like any timid creature, cornered and frightened, Victoria jumped up, prepared to fight back. “Why did you come after me? Why? You care nothing—”

  “This has nothing to do with caring, madam.” Spencer glared at her. “This has to do with my heir. You are still with child, are you not?”

  Embarrassed heat suffused Victoria’s face. She purposely kept her voice down because of the proximity of neighbors on both sides. “Yes, I am. I told you the ocean crossing would not harm me or the baby.”

  “Yes, you did. But you also took a great risk with that undertaking. Tell me why. What—or who—was so important, Victoria, that you would take that risk upon yourself?”

  Clutching her hands together, she turned away. “I cannot tell you.”

  Behind her, Spencer said: “You mean you will not.”

  “I mean I cannot.” Gripping her long, full skirt, she pivoted sharply about to face him. “And you’re right—I will not.”

  Disdain capped Spencer’s expression and glittered his black eyes. “Answer enough, then, isn’t it?”

  With her gaze locked with his, Victoria firmed her lips together against the urge to tell him the truth. She yearned for an ally, yearned for Spencer’s strong shoulder to rely on. But the letter she’d received in
England had been specific: If she enlisted aid, or told anyone why she was here, that person would be killed. And they had spies everywhere. They watched her every move. She knew that much from having found that anonymous note on her pillow last night. Spencer exhaled a dispirited sound and said: “Your silence damns you and condemns us both, Victoria.”

  Unable to look him in the eye any longer, so guilty did she feel and on so many levels, Victoria looked down and away, staring toward the back gate. “I’m sorry, Spencer, I truly am, but this is how it must be.”

  When he made no reply, curiosity got the better of Victoria. She looked up at him. Once again he was not focused on her. Instead, a puzzled expression bracketed his eyes and mouth as he concentrated his attention on the back gate.

  Fear that they were being watched by interested parties jolted through Victoria. She trained her attention on the gate, and though she saw nothing alarming, wariness still crept over her skin like night falling on a landscape. “What is it, Spencer?”

  “I’m not certain,” he said, frowning, “but I could swear I saw…”

  As his voice trailed off, Victoria took up the lead. “Saw what?”

  He shook his head and looked down at her. “Nothing. Never mind.” He smiled and shifted his weight as if signaling a change in subject. “I find there’s such beauty in this city, like I’ve never seen before. Absolutely astounding.”

  Victoria stared at him. What was he up to? What had he seen? And why had he so quickly discounted it? However … “Yes, there is,” she said, politely responding to his comment regarding Savannah’s beauty.

  Spencer gazed warmly at her, causing her heart to take an irrational leap of joyful awareness. “One would never expect something so … delicate and lovely could be found out here in this garden.”

  His gaze was so intimate, and his stern British demeanor so relaxed, that Victoria had to move away from him and sit down again on the delicately scrollworked bench. “And yet every Savannah house of any presence or reputation has a garden, one peculiar to its owner’s tastes.”

  Spencer’s unexpected chuckle treated Victoria to a dazzling display of his white and even teeth. Something inside her quickened. All she could think was she knew how it felt to be kissed by his mouth. But telling herself such thoughts would never do, not when she couldn’t trust him, Victoria feigned insult. “Did I say something that amused you, sir?”

  “Yes, you always do, Victoria. Now, keep smiling, pretend we are having a polite conversation, and stay here. I saw something in the alley I feel I should investigate. And I don’t wish to alert our visitors that we are aware of them.”

  With that, and leaving her sitting there to process all he’d said, he turned and walked away from her, being careful to avoid the gravel pathway. Victoria stupidly stared after him, but then it struck her: Spencer! He’s unarmed and unaware. She jumped up and hurried toward him, calling out: “Wait, Spencer.” He turned sharply in her direction. She forced a cheerful note into her voice, already laden with urgency. “Allow me to come—”

  “No.” He punctuated his answer with a cautionary hand held out to stop her—and smiled like death itself. “I will have a simple stroll through the garden … my dear. Don’t trouble yourself. Please … go back to the bench and wait there for me.”

  An eyebrow raised in ominous warning, he waited for her to comply. Frustration ate at Victoria. What should she do? Rush over to him and tell him the truth, thereby signing his death warrant if their visitors in the alley were the men who followed her? Or go back to the bench and hope it wasn’t them and Spencer would be fine?

  “Victoria … the bench.”

  He was giving her no choice. Heartsick with worry, she hurried back to the bench, sat down and nervously held her lower lip between her teeth as she watched her husband walk away. Maybe, if nothing else, her calling out to Spencer had alerted whoever was out there of his approach, and they would leave in haste.

  Victoria’s gaze remained riveted on her husband’s form. A purely feminine part of her mind, one not impressed by intrigue and lies and danger, remarked that he carried himself with such natural athletic grace. A tall, imposing figure of a man, he was. He’d removed his coat and collar at some point inside and had come out here in his white shirt, open at the strong column of his throat. He’d rolled his shirtsleeves up a few turns, exposing his muscled forearms, which were tanned a light brown.

  Popping into Victoria’s immediate consciousness now was the remembrance of that bone-melting, staggering shock of a feeling she’d experienced when she’d first walked into the front parlor at River’s End this morning and had looked into her husband’s eyes. Seeing him had produced a tiny explosion inside her heart and mind that had left her momentarily disoriented. It had been as if her soul had only then recognized him as the man with whom she’d spend the remainder of her life. She’d wondered all day if he’d felt it, too. But there was no way on God’s green earth she could ask him, now was there? He’d think her insane. Or bewitched.

  Victoria watched Spencer’s deliberately meandering stroll through the garden. Every few steps, he stopped to examine a flower or a shrub. A smile came unbidden to Victoria’s lips. What would it have been like, her wondering mind asked her, to have met him under other, more innocent, circumstances and have him pursue me for the sole reason that he wished to do so? Oh, so delicious, the thought.

  At that moment, Spencer stopped at the wooden gate at the back of the property. Holding on to the top of it with both hands, he hauled himself up as if he meant to have a quick look up and down the alley. But he couldn’t quite get a toehold and pitched backward, almost falling down. Victoria grinned at his curious-little-boy antics.

  Apparently deciding on a different tactic, he simply unlatched the gate. Victoria held her breath, praying hard for the alley to be empty of danger. She fisted her hands around her skirt’s folds and sat forward, her breaths coming in tight little gasps as Spencer stepped back to allow the gate to swing inward. Victoria feared hordes of awful men would rush him and kill him right in front of her. A mewling cry escaped her … Spencer stepped out into the alley and stood in the middle of the rough thoroughfare, his hands planted at his waist, looking first one way and then the other.

  When nothing happened, when he simply stood there unharmed moment after moment, Victoria relaxed and breathed deeply—and treated herself to the masculine vision Spencer was. His long and strong muscled legs, and those narrow hips. His trim waist. That broad back and those shoulders. Despite all the tensions between them and her fervent wish not to be affected by her husband, Victoria heaved a sigh of purely feminine appreciation. Heaven help her, John Spencer Whitfield was one powerfully attractive man.

  Troubled by the power of her attraction to him, she looked away from him, settling her unfocused gaze instead on a low, green shrub across the way. Why, oh why, didn’t Daddy marry me off to one of those narrow-shouldered, chinless dandies who’d come sniffing around in England? They would have been much easier, given the pickle she found herself in now, to defend her heart against than Spencer was. Could it be worse? Here she sat, expecting one man’s child—if only she knew which man’s—while trying to save another man’s child—a child he could not acknowledge and maybe did not even want saved.

  Victoria’s heart sank. Men. How could they be so impossibly heartless? Not for the first time was she aware of how this other awful situation mirrored her own predicament. The timing, of course, was merely coincidence and one thing hadn’t anything to do with the other. But, still, it was odd, the lessons life chose to teach one—and at the worst possible moment in a person’s life. Wasn’t her own burden enough right now for her to bear? Why did she have to take on this one, as well?

  Instantly, Victoria felt ashamed for having harbored such selfish thoughts. How could she think only of herself? Guilt had her looking down at her hands folded together in her lap. She carried a tiny life inside her that needed her to be safe and healthy for its sake. She shouldn�
�t be taking risks on another’s behalf right now. But she had to. No one else would. Victoria thought of the awful, awful people who had an innocent child held helplessly in their grasp. She feared what they had already done to the child’s mother.

  Anger hardened Victoria’s expression, but she quickly blanked it and forced herself to relax. It couldn’t be good for her baby for her to be so upset all the time. Victoria pressed her hand against her still flat abdomen. We’ll be fine, don’t you worry.

  Just as she did this, a very close and deafening sound rang out. Jumping and exclaiming with fright, Victoria realized she was on her feet, though she didn’t remember standing. In that same instant, she recognized the sound—a gun being fired—and pivoted in the direction of the sound. Out in the alley. “Oh, dear God … no.”

  Spencer. Victoria staggered, grabbing on to the bench for support. She thought first she’d be ill, that she would faint dead away. But from somewhere deep inside her, from a well of strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she managed to straighten up and start running, running. “Spencer!”

  The gate seemed to get no closer and her legs felt so heavy. The very air surrounding her thickened, became her enemy, slowed her down and dragged her footsteps. Then, from behind her, seemingly coming from out of nowhere, men rushed past her and someone was grabbing her by her arms, telling her something, stopping her, holding her. The men’s voices sounded warped, as if they were yelling and speaking through a wall of water.

  Perhaps it was the shock, but Victoria felt the sting of tears in her eyes and heard her own voice, like that of a child’s, asking: “What’s happened? I don’t understand.”

  No one answered her. Then suddenly she realized she had at last made it to the alley—but someone was holding her tightly, trying to force her away. Who? She concentrated on who this person was, fighting his hold on her and looking into his face. Hornsby. Spencer’s elderly valet. His stricken expression told its own story. Befuddled, in shock, Victoria shook her head, but the man tightened his hold on her, one arm around her back and his other hand pressed against the back of her head as he forced her cheek to his shoulder. “Don’t look, Your Grace. Don’t look.”