Marriage Made in Rebellion

by Sophia James

  If they hated her, then they did. If they were harried from the society, then they were. But she had her husband at her side, close and solid and menacing.

  And there were others, too, Gabriel Hughes and his wife, Adelaide, and Daniel Wylde and Amethyst. Christine was there, too, and then there was Lucien’s mother walking towards her and taking her hand in her own and holding it close.

  ‘Welcome to the family, Alejandra. An apology is too little a thing to offer in mitigation for what I have done to you, but here my name carries considerable weight and so I add it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She held her mother-in-law’s fingers and smiled.

  And then it was easy, the whirl of faces, the greetings, the quiet introductions and the dancing, with Lucien always beside her, his hand on her back, guiding. When the musicians came back to their seats for another set of dances he leant down and whispered quietly, ‘It is a waltz, Alejandra. Will you dance it with me?’

  ‘I am not practised in any way,’ she countered, but he stopped her.

  ‘Let me lead and it will be simple.’

  She felt his heartbeat, saw his long pale hair rest against the blackness of cloth and the small lines of laughter that ran about his eyes.

  Beautiful. As beautiful as the first time she had ever met him up in the after smoke of battle by the aloe hedges. A whole history together, good and bad.

  ‘You never doubted that this would work, did you?’ she whispered as they came together, close.

  He shook his head. ‘After I thought about it I realised that you have the sort of beauty that draws people to them, Alejandra, and in your red dress. Well...’

  He stopped for a moment before continuing.

  ‘I used to imagine you in this, you know, even when I was sick after A Coruña. I knew in this colour that you would be unmatched. And you are.’

  ‘Only because of you, Lucien. All of this is only because of you.’

  * * *

  Adelaide took her hand as they walked into supper, the quiet beauty of Gabriel’s wife undeniable.

  ‘I am so glad you were able to come, Alejandra. Gabriel was adamant that we have at least one grand ball in our life, though I am hoping that it will be the last.’

  ‘You do not enjoy dancing?’

  ‘Oh, indeed I do. What I don’t enjoy is all the fuss of it and the necessity to be so well dressed and so very uncomfortable. Oh,’ she suddenly said, digging into her small beaded reticule and bringing out a small bottle of powder. ‘I have something for you. One teaspoon each morning for a week is what I give to every new wife for fertility and well-being. The power of it comes from belief,’ she added, ‘but I have heard that the Spanish people have a healthy love of folklore, so I am certain it shall work very well on you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It is good to have you here and to see Lucien happy. He has not been, you see, for so long. Gabriel was certain that he was lonely, though I think he had plenty of chances to remedy that as the ladies here are more than forward and he is very good-looking.’

  Beautiful.

  Alejandra imagined him coming back to England after A Coruña, sick and hurt and sad. Such dark days for them both, caught in war and fire and death.

  ‘I will never let him be lonely again,’ she promised and meant it.

  Adelaide smiled. ‘Amethyst said that I would like you and I do.’

  * * *

  Half an hour later Alejandra walked down a small corridor to the retiring room. She needed to take a break for a moment from all the well-wishers and those asking to be acquainted with the new wife of the Earl of Ross. The evening had been such a mix of dread, nerves, wonder and elation she also needed a moment just to stop.

  She was surprised to come across a man tarrying to one side of the retiring-room door.

  ‘You may have fooled them all, but you cannot fool me, señora, for I know who you truly are and if it takes me a lifetime to prove it, then so be it.’

  ‘It was you who made the picture? You are Frank Walters?’

  He shook his head and began his tirade anew. ‘No, I am Viscount Radford and you are a disgrace to all of womanhood if you think you can get away with such utter lies simply by appearing here on the arm of your husband this evening. You ought to be ejected summarily from society and asked never to return for you corrupt the innocence of all women...’

  Such vitriol shocked her to the core, though he spoke in such rapid English Alejandra could barely make out the sense of his words.

  He was close to her now, the hate in his eyes fierce and unguarded, though as he raised his arm as if to strike her the patience in Alejandra broke completely and she blocked his hand with her own, bringing his arm behind his back in one quick motion and pulling up.

  He groaned and she was glad for it. With only a little push she could snap his arm in two places. It would be so very easy to do so.

  ‘Perhaps, señor, is not good such hate. I can hurt you, but I think you are not worth that bother.’ Jabbing her elbow into his back, she let him go.

  ‘Stay far from me and my family. If you come near me again, my husband will kill you and I am not stop him. Do you understand?’

  For the first time fear lingered where hate had been and Alejandra was pleased for it. She watched as the man almost ran in the opposite direction before leaning back against the wall.

  ‘Did he hurt you?’

  Lucien materialised from the gloom and stood there watching her.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘All of it. Shall I kill him now?’

  At that she smiled. ‘No. I do not think he will trouble us again.’

  ‘Good. Then are you ready to go back to the ball?’

  He did not admonish her or even question her about what had just happened. He had allowed her the right to defend herself in the way she knew how and backed up her actions. If she had asked Lucien to kill Viscount Radford, she imagined he would have. Quietly. Efficiently. Without any fuss or problem whatsoever.

  A man she could trust. A man who understood she was not as other women here were and yet admired her for it. He was not asking her to change in this marriage. No, he was allowing her to walk beside him equally. A partnership based on strength.

  ‘I thought perhaps we might leave soon. It is not late, but...’ The lines about his eyes creased into humour.

  ‘I would like that.’

  Threading her arm through his, they turned together to find their hosts.

  * * *

  Once back in their bedchamber at the Ross town house he peeled off the red gown with a careful slowness, the silk running through his fingers and pooling at her feet. Then he removed her underclothing.

  ‘You are so very lovely,’ he said when the layers of lawn and silk had finally gone, Alejandra’s velvet skin burnished by candlelight. A short string of pearls at her throat caught the light and he unclasped these, too.

  ‘I think it is the gown, Lucien. A dozen people asked me tonight who my dressmaker was. I said Mon Soeur was the label and that I should send them the card of calling on the morrow with the name of the seamstress upon it.’

  ‘Christine?’

  ‘She does not wish for anyone to know she designs these dresses, so I do not quite know what to say.’

  Lucien began to laugh. ‘I am surrounded by women who are not as they seem.’

  ‘That is because you are comfortable in your own skin, my love. A lesser man might be threatened by it.’

  ‘And a lesser woman would ask incessantly for my help.’

  ‘Your friends all admire you. Do you know that? Each one of them at different times has approached me and made certain that I know what a treasure I have been given and each one of them has intimated you were lonely. For all the years of our apartness.’

  ‘I was.’ He brought her into his arms. He had removed his own jacket and shirt and neckcloth now, though he still stood in his trousers and shoes. ‘They all tried to match me up with this person and with that o
ne, but it was only ever you...’

  ‘Only us, Lucien. You and me.’

  ‘Only now,’ he agreed and lifted her eyes to his. ‘When and where was the engraving done on the inside band of my signet ring?’

  ‘In Vigo. I went there after Pontevedra when you did not come and paid the last of my money to a jeweller to inscribe the message. I knew I was pregnant, you see, and I thought if anything happened to me, then our baby would need to find its way back to you. To family.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘It was stolen, though, in the house in La Latina. How on earth did you find it?’

  ‘An English soldier had a run-in with a homeless man in Madrid and recognised my crest. He brought it home to London and gave it to me.’

  ‘So you knew I was alive then, instead of gone in the fire?’

  ‘I hoped so, but Luis Alvarez’s son confirmed it for me.’

  ‘You went back to the little port of Pontevedra?’

  ‘Xavier Alvarez, Luis’s son, told me you had sat on the wharf for a long while after his father and I left and that you had been near to crying. He then said he saw you take the road into the hills and it was raining.’

  He stopped for a second and took in a deep breath. ‘The timing would have been too tight. There was no way you could have reached the hacienda by the time of the fire. If it had not rained? If you had not tarried? If you had taken the coastal road...?’ His voice shook with all the possibilities that had not come to pass.

  ‘You think I cannot say exactly the same of you, Lucien? If you had not come to the French prison and helped me escape, if you had not made your appointment in the brothel under the name of Mateo, if you had not been fighting in A Coruña in the first place.’

  ‘But I did.’

  ‘And we do,’ she whispered, her hands across his chest and then falling downwards. ‘Only now, remember. If we live like that for all our lives, everything will be perfect. The future will take care of itself and the past is finished with. We cannot change it. All the best intentions shall not undo it.’

  ‘Only now?’

  ‘This moment. This second.’

  He stepped out of the last of his clothes and brought her up against him hard.

  ‘You are my world, Alejandra.’

  And then they forgot to speak at all.

  * * *

  Afterwards they lay entwined in a tangle of sheets and quilting, close and quiet. The last of the four-hour candle had burnt down the wick, sending dark smoke into the air and strange reflections on to the ceiling.

  ‘My mother would have liked you, Lucien. She would have been pleased with my choice.’

  She felt his chest shake in humour. ‘Who was she, your mother?’

  ‘Rosalie Santo Domingo y Giminez was the daughter of one of the wealthiest landowners in Galicia. Papa and she were betrothed under the old system of marriage. He was strong and a leader of men and my mama’s father admired him. Europe was being cast into war and chaos and I suppose her father thought Enrique Fernandez y Castro could protect both his daughter and them, protect their inheritance and land and cattle. As it happened my grandparents were both taken by sickness one winter soon after the marriage and everything went to my father, the new groom, and the outsider.’

  ‘So no one was happy?’

  ‘Well, my mother certainly was. She saw how Enrique could rally people around a cause with his logic and his menace and she understood that allies at a time of great change were more than useful. Within two years he had the pledges of thirty other landholders around us for help and loyalty and he never looked back.’

  ‘Did Rosalie?’

  ‘No, not really. She hated the violence and the fighting, but by then she had lost her heart to him as well as all her property. Women lose their rights under marriage, you see, and my father was a great believer in that particular concept. And so here I am as landless and moneyless as my mother was in the end, for I doubt that even if peace comes to Spain I will be able to regain possession of our lands and houses.’

  ‘I did not marry you for your money, Alejandra, or your lack of it. I married you because I love you. Besides, my interests in manufacturing are starting to pay off and I would say by the end of the year the Ross finances will be more than healthy again.’

  Relief made her breathe out heavily. ‘So you were not in need of a wealthy heiress?’

  ‘No, I was always in need of a beautiful and brave Spanish warrior.’

  ‘Are you in need now?’ She smiled and turned towards him, her hips lifting against his side as her mouth came down across his own.

  * * *

  She was sick again in the morning and as she returned to the bed Lucien pulled back the sheets and took her into his warmth.

  ‘Could you be pregnant, Alejandra?’

  The shock of the words kept her still as she counted back the days since her last menses. She had never had one moment of sickness with Ross and so the thought of it had not even occurred to her.

  Lifting the sheet, he traced the outline of her nipples. ‘They are darker, sweetheart. Is that not a sign?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember from before...’

  ‘And you have been tired.’

  ‘Yes, but I thought it was the listening to English and trying to understand it all the time.’

  ‘Perhaps you might talk with Amethyst and ask her about the signs, or Adelaide.’ His hand spread across her stomach now, in possession and in hope, she thought, too.

  ‘Mama was not a woman to speak of these things and I have never had another to ask. Maria was older and forgetful and the one child she’d had was dead, so I didn’t like to question her.’

  ‘What of the other girls at the brothel? Surely there were babies born there?’

  ‘Indeed there were, but I was their employer. It was not appropriate to ask them.’ She sat up suddenly, unable to lie there any more. ‘Could we go to see Amethyst or Adelaide?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps I could be... We could be parents.’ Her hands came across her mouth. ‘Do you think it could be true?’

  He pushed back the bedcovers and offered her his hand. ‘I am a man with absolutely no idea of anything to do with pregnancy, but let’s get dressed and go.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  All his best friends were here in the library at Linden Park—Daniel, Gabriel and Francis—waiting with him amongst the books and brandy for the birth of his and Alejandra’s first child.

  The doctor had been called a good hour ago and the midwife had been here most of the morning. Amethyst, Christine and Adelaide had insisted that they stay with Alejandra, too, and for that Lucien was extremely grateful.

  ‘It’s always exhausting, Luce, this waiting,’ Daniel said. ‘God, I remember it with the birth of Sapphire. I thought that neither my wife nor baby would live beyond the hour and that I’d be alone for ever and...’ He stopped and finished the last of his brandy.

  ‘I think Lucien would rather hear the good stories, Daniel.’ Gabriel voiced his opinion now. ‘The ones that speak of women having a baby one moment and getting on with their lives the next.’

  ‘In America the Mohican women would depart alone to a secluded grove near water to prepare for delivery.’ Francis’s remark was soft and Lucien looked at him in amazement.

  ‘You think it would help my wife to be outside by herself trying to have our baby?’

  ‘No. I am just saying that birth is often relatively painless and simple.’

  ‘Keep away from Alejandra until she has had the baby, then. I think she might very well kill you right now if she heard you saying that.’

  ‘Amethyst believes mankind would be doomed if males were the ones who had to give birth.’ Daniel spoke again now, more careful with what he said.

  Lucien simply paced from the open door to the windows and back. It had been all of three hours since he had last been allowed into the birthing room. How long did these things usuall
y take? He screwed his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes.

  If he lost Alejandra again... No, he would not even entertain such a notion.

  Opening his eyes, he glanced over at Gabriel, whose small son was almost two now, but who had stayed largely silent in the discussion.

  ‘When Adelaide had Jamie, were you afraid, Gabe?’

  ‘More scared than I have ever been in my entire life. I think it’s normal.’

  ‘We had another child. A little boy.’ The words were out before he could rethink them, falling into the silence like bullets. ‘He only lived for a few minutes.’

  ‘My God.’ Daniel stood at that and joined him by the window. ‘Was this in Spain, Luce?’

  ‘After I left her in Spain. Five years ago.’

  ‘Alejandra had him alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, now she has us all. A whole lot of people who can help her and get her through. And get you through, too. In an hour you will be the happiest you have ever felt in your life. I promise you that.’

  ‘What was the name of your son?’

  Gabriel asked this question and Lucien was glad to bring his name here into the room as a part of a waiting family.

  ‘He was named Ross.’

  ‘A good name. A family name.’ Francis now lifted his glass and raised it to the room. ‘To Ross. May he never be forgotten.’

  They each drank deep of their tipple and for some unfathomable reason Lucien could almost hear his little lost child tell him that this birth would go well, that there would be a baby who would grow up as he had not and that all would be better this time around. Lucien smiled. He had begun the arrangements already to bring the tiny body home and Alejandra had overseen the planting of olive, aloe and oak saplings in a grove by the lake at Linden Park. Familiar trees. Small whispers of Spain.

  He made himself sit down and take a drink and was just about to swallow the brandy when the door opened.

  ‘Your wife wants you, Lucien.’

  It was Amethyst and the smile on her face was wide.

  Alejandra was lying in the bed in a nightgown he had brought for her a few weeks ago in London and her dark hair was streaming down over her shoulders. In her arms was a small bundle wrapped in the soft white woollen blanket his mother had crocheted all through the months of winter.