by Joan Smith
Mrs. Wanderley dabbed at a tear and considered how long she ought to wait before going to visit Ellie in Somerset, and whether her husband would go with her, or must she make do with Abel. Lord, and not mention a word of it to the Homberlys, or Rex would tag along. Adam mentally toted up the price he would have to fork up for the wilting lilies, and regretted that he had not thought to provide flowers himself.
In less than an hour the ceremony was over, and the party repaired to Grosvenor Square for an afternoon of overeating, drinking, dancing and general revelry. Everyone complimented the young couple and insinuated with ingenuity that each was fortunate beyond just expectations in having snared the other. By way of complimenting them mutually, Rex, slightly bosky with wine, said, “Well, Clay, you said you was going to buy the prettiest girl in England to spite the Rose, and by Jove, you’ve done it.”
“That is not precisely what I said,” Clay replied, frowning heavily.
“The gist of it anyway. The morning you proposed to ... well, well, never mind that. Wasn’t supposed to mention it. Very nice wedding, Ellie. Your mother did you proud.” He shot a guilty glance at the groom, hunched his round shoulders in apology or desperation, and thought of a way to retrieve his slip into veracity. “Clay tell you about our little bonfire?” he asked genially, having found no opportunity to perform this office for his friend. “Burnt up all the Rose’s love letters. Whole slew of ‘em.”
“Yes, he told me,” she replied, torn between amusement and chagrin.
Rex said aside in a perfectly audible voice, “Glad to oblige you, Clay. Any time,” before stumbling off to tell Wanda she’d have to go some to beat this do.
Clay was naturally eager to avoid any further obligations Rex might wish to perform, and tried to keep out of his way, but alas, he was soon back. “Where’s Miss Simpson?” he demanded, in a voice becoming surly.
“Who is Miss Simpson?” Ellie asked.
“Who’s Miss Simpson? Well, if you ain’t a flat, Ellie. Miss Simpson’s the prettiest girl in London.”
“How does it come you didn’t marry her, Clay?” Ellie asked archly.
“ ‘Cause I’m going to marry her, that’s why,” Rex said. “She’s too tall for Clay. About as tall as you are today, with that lace scaffold you’ve got on your head. What in the deuce made you wear it? Wanda put you up to it to make a sight of you? Going to marry Miss Simpson. She’ll have to stoop a little. Daresay she won’t like it. Wanda didn’t.” He roamed off again, without waiting for any answers, in search of Miss Simpson, who was in Bath with her parents, receiving the attentions of a very tall Officer of the Guards.
“Poor Rex is all about in his head,” Claymore was happy to inform his bride. “There is no making any sense of him when he’s in his cups.”
“He made pretty good sense to me,” Ellie said, then she turned abruptly away to receive yet more compliments from the Hibbards. She contrived to stay away from her husband for the next hour, till she should get her feelings under control. It was no easy matter, for he pursued her relentlessly, but at least they were not private, and he could hardly go into complicated explanations about having bought a bride at his wedding feast. Instead he consumed a great deal of wine to fortify his courage for the ordeal ahead of him. He was determined to get the subject of Gloria cleared away once and for all.
By the time the couple was waved from the door in a shower of rice and ensconced in Claymore’s carriage on their way home, he was as well foxed as Rex, and even Ellie had consumed more than she was accustomed to. Besides their reeling heads, they had their separate problems to consider, so that conversation was slight, and lovemaking nonexistent.
Clay struggled inadequately in his mind with words to explain how he had gone to Surrey seeking just any beautiful woman to marry him, and found there the girl of his dreams. Ellie, even more distracted, considered her nuptial night. She knew some unprecedented thing was going to happen to her, but had very little idea what. Her mama had told her ominously that “what was expected of her” on that night, and subsequent nights at her lord’s pleasure, was little enough price to pay for the privilege of being the Marchioness of Claymore. Joan might have been more explicit but for Mama’s comprehensive statement that she “had gone into all of that” and there was no point in throwing the poor girl into hysterics by harping on it. It was, strangely, Lady Tameson who had given her some hope by exclaiming with a titter that she feared she must be an abandoned creature, for she had come to enjoy it. Wanda, who was present on that interesting occasion, appeared to know more than her twin, for she, too, confided that she was looking forward to it.
Ellie could not bring herself to proclaim her ignorance before these two women of the world and was wallowing still in a sea of doubt and misconceptions. She had heard her Aunt Elaine once tell Joan that she had locked herself in the closet on her wedding night, and though she had laughed at the time, she was coming to think it a very good idea now. She pulled into her own corner of the coach and bit her lips in apprehension.
When Miss Pritchard, a spinster, of course, had arrayed her in her finest chiffon nightgown, brushed out her curls and said in a bracing accent, “Buck up, it won’t kill you,” Ellie was as prepared as she would ever be to receive her husband—or perhaps lock herself in the closet. A cursory examination revealed there was no lock on the closet, and besides she thought she would feel very foolish to be found crouching in amongst her suits and gowns. Before she had time to discover whether the spot under the bed was deep enough to conceal her, there was a tap on the door, and Claymore came in, fully clad she was happy to see, and carrying a tray with champagne and two glasses.
“Well, here we are, alone at last,” he said in a voice that was trying hard to sound jolly, and failing miserably.
“Yes, indeed,” Ellie replied in a similar tone, casting one last longing eye on the closet, and backing away from him.
Claymore set the tray down on the table and took up the bottle of wine. “I thought we might drink a toast to ourselves,” he suggested, and made a prolonged ceremony of removing the cork.
“Oh, yes indeed,” Ellie replied. Her retreat had led her to the bed, and she fell backward on its edge with a plop.
Clay poured the wine and advanced toward her with a glass in either hand. Seeing that her eyes were wildly dilated and her fingers clutching at the counterpane, he said, “Not nervous, are you?” as he handed her a glass. His own hand was shaking so violently that half a glass of champagne sloshed over onto her new gown. “You can see I’m not nervous,” he laughed inanely.
They drank for two minutes in silence, the only sound that of the wine going down their throats. “It’s good champagne,” he said at last, desperate to introduce some talk to the occasion. For one wild moment he even wished Rex were there.
“Yes indeed,” she said again. They seemed to be the only words she knew. With an effort she added, “Very good wine,” and she emptied her glass.
This opened a whole new sphere of activity. Claymore could now pour her another glass, and suggest playfully that he hadn’t realized his wife was a tippler, and he had better get cracking, or she would finish the bottle on him. “And don’t say ‘yes indeed,’ Ellie,” he added, in quite a natural tone. Her patent terror had served to put him relatively at ease. What he must not do was rush at her again, as he had in the carriage, and scare the daylights out of her.
The lovemaking advanced by such slow stages that it could hardly be said to advance at all. Lord Claymore’s passion, however, proceeded apace. He could no longer restrain himself, and sit mouthing platitudes on his honeymoon, when his bride sat not six inches away, looking very fetching in her diaphanous gown. Before he quite knew what he was about, he left his chair and was on the edge of the bed beside her, and within two seconds she was in his arms, struggling violently to get out. Just as she was about to give up the struggle, for she was human after all, and felt suddenly a certain intuition as to what he was going to do, and no terrific reluctan
ce for him to do it, he pulled back.
He looked at her a moment, his face rigid and flushed. “I can’t,” he said, and he arose from the bed.
“Can’t what?” Ellie asked in a shaken voice.
“Poor girl,” he said with a soft smile. “You’ve had enough horrors for one day. Stop worrying; I’m not going to ravage you. Go to bed.”
“I am in bed,” she pointed out.
“So you are. Go to sleep then. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Clay! You are not leaving me!”
“Ah yes, my pretty,” he stroked her cheek with a warm finger, feeling very debonair. “Do you think I can trust myself with you?” He laughed softly, blew out the last burning taper, and walked from the room, bumping tables as he went, and sending a glass to the floor. His gallant exit was marred by the sound of shattering crystal, but in his new guise as master of all situations, he did not utter a single expletive.
He walked to his own chamber, feeling unfulfilled, and very noble. He marveled at her shyness, her inexperience. He even managed a twinge of remorse at his scarlet past. He would woo her slowly—wait another whole night if necessary—so that her initiation would not be of a harrowing sort that would give her a disgust of him. He recalled the unwisdom of a friend, Raleigh, who had bragged of his exploits on his wedding night, and within a year his wife had left him. Didn’t see how a fellow could be such a gudgeon. He doubted if Ellie appreciated the sacrifice he was making, though.
In the next room Ellie beat her pillow in frustration, and told herself she had known all along he didn’t love her, and this proved it. He was disgusted with her; couldn’t bring himself to touch her; had only married her to spite the Rose, as she well knew, and was very likely sneaking off to see her at every opportunity.
In the yawning darkness (naturally, she had nothing to rekindle the taper the brute had blown out on her), she considered a just punishment for him. Her first ideas of throwing herself into the Thames, or perhaps consuming deadly nightshade, were seen upon further consideration to inflict some small damage on the innocent, as well as depriving her of witnessing his guilt. She turned her wrath to lesser revenges.
She took some consolation from envisaging herself a scarlet woman, infamous throughout all of Europe for her wanton ways, but that, she felt, would not be quite comfortable. Well, she had lost comfort forever in any case; how could she be comfortable under the roof of this unfeeling wretch?
This belligerent thought gave birth to another and more hopeful one. Why must she reside under his roof? She was not his wife in anything but name. He was using her to spite the Rose, whom he simultaneously loved on the side, and had probably promised her that he would never love another. It was this awful darkness that muddled her thoughts so. Or perhaps it was the wine. Why had she drunk so much? It was only the embarrassment of being alone with Clay, on their wedding night.
Her thoughts took a lachrymose turn to her part in the debacle. Certainly she had behaved rashly. Very likely he had taken the notion she didn’t want him to touch her, only because she had backed off a little at first, out of shyness. If that was what he thought... she threw off the blankets and hopped out of bed, determined to go to him at once, for of course he loved her dearly. She would explain this whole nonsensical misunderstanding away.
In the darkness she stepped on the broken crystal, and felt a large chunk sink into her heel. She hobbled to the door, whimpering, and in the hall a lamp was burning. By its dim light she pulled the sliver of glass from her foot, before limping along to Clay’s room, feeling very like a true heroine, braving all dangers and losing half an ounce of blood, to go to her beloved...
What a sad comedown that he was laid out on his bed, fully dressed still, and snoring. But a candle was tilting at a precarious angle, rammed into the top of a wine bottle, and obviously endangering his life. How very like him! He thought to blow out hers, but not his own... The gaslight, of which he was so proud, appeared to stop at the ground floor. Her heart melted with tenderness to see him in such peril.
“Clay.” She laid a hand on his brow. “Clay, wake up,” she said, softly in his ear. He snored on, and the fumes of wine were breathed in her face. “Clay, it’s me,” she crooned softly. “I love you. You know I love you. I don’t care if you used to love Gloria. I still love you,” she insisted to his inert form.
Perhaps some words penetrated his sleep. Perhaps the word “Gloria,” as he then turned his head and grabbed her hand and said, “Rose. Golden Rose.”
She pulled her hand away as though it had been scorched. For a moment she stood motionless, only her chest moving in agitation, before she turned and ran from the room. Then she returned and took up his candle, not that she cared a hoot if he burned his stupid old house down, but only because she didn’t want to go back to a dark room.
She was breathing hard, in quick, shallow breaths. This was the final degradation! He was dreaming of the Rose, and on his wedding night! She was humiliated, hurt, angry, and determined to leave his roof at once. Only her heel was bleeding like the very devil, and paining her too. Very likely she hadn’t got all the glass out. She sat on the side of her bed and made plans in earnest. Real plans this time, not maudlin stuff about killing herself. Kill him was more like it! She would leave and never see him again. See how Miss Golden Rose liked that, and the Marquis of Claymore, with his twenty thousand pounds a year. Buying the prettiest wife in England, to spite the Rose!
She got dressed in a new scarlet suit, put on a hat, and headed for the door without packing a single stitch of her trousseau... Then she remembered that it was packed, in a trunk somewhere, ready for the honeymoon trip, but she had no notion where it might be. It was while she stood at the door considering this that it first occurred to her she must have somewhere to go.
Not to the Siderows. That would be the first place he’d look. And not Caroline’s either, for she would only say she must return to him, and very likely begin nagging at her again for Alice’s harp, which was in the music room. No, what she must do was to go home, to Papa. He would understand, though her mother would kill her. Well then, she must get home without Mama’s knowing anything about it, which meant not with Papa, for they would both be going home with Abel in the family carriage.
Her next thought was the Homberlys’. She would not like to tell her story to Mrs. Homberly, but Rex would stand her friend. And he was, fortunately, not with his mother, but at the hotel—the Fenton Hotel was the name she had heard mentioned by her mama.
A rational consideration led her to the conclusion it would be foolhardy to go before daybreak. Rex had been foxed a few hours ago (only a few hours ago; it seemed eons), and would be of no use before morning. Very well then, she would wait. She sat in the chair by the table, and within ten minutes of sitting down was fast asleep, her head resting on the hard wood. The candle, still leaning dangerously in the bottle, contrived to burn itself out without setting the house afire, and when she awoke several hours later, the room was half bright, with a red rising sun visible through the window.
She picked up her reticule, limped to the door of her room, checked the hall for lingering servants, and, observing the path to be clear, made a hasty flight along the corridor, down the broad staircase, across the vast marble hall, and out the door to Curzon Street.
Chapter Fourteen
She had, fortunately, only to walk around the corner to Tiburn Lane and down the two blocks to Piccadilly before she managed to hire a hansom cab to take her to the Fenton Hotel. Mr. Homberly was not at all pleased to be dragged from sleep not two hours after his dizzy head had hit the pillow, and long before the inebriating fumes had dissipated. Still, he was sober enough to realize that a thing of unparalleled interest was in the process of enactment when he glanced at the hasty note Lady Claymore had sent up. He was soon into his blue coat of Bath cloth with the buttons of brass, big as saucers, and his yellow trousers. The exigency of the occasion decided him against arranging a time-consuming Waterfall,
and he contented himself with a natty dotted Belcher kerchief round his neck.
He was happy to see Ellie had had the sense to take a private parlor to await him, unaware of its being the proprietor’s idea, when he recognized the early caller to be a swell of the first stare. “What the devil’s happened, Ellie?” he asked in a surly tone. “Where’s Clay?”
“He is at Claymore House. I’ve left him,” she asserted bravely, her chin up.
“Left him? Good God, you can’t do that! Haven’t been buckled twenty-four hours yet. Never heard of such a thing in my life. Why did you go and do that for?”
“For—for private reasons that I can’t reveal, even to you, but you must believe they are very good reasons.” She limped toward him as she spoke, her glass-infested heel hurting madly.
“Good lord, you never mean he beat you!” Rex exclaimed, approaching sobriety with the shock this circumstance dealt his reeling mind. Why, the poor soul could hardly drag herself along at all.
“Certainly not! Why should he do that?” she asked, feeling a bothersome desire to defend her awful spouse.
“How should I know? Why are you dragging your limb then?”
“That is not of the smallest importance. An accident merely. The thing is, Rex, you must take me home.”
“I must take you home? Well, if you ain’t a Johnnie Raw, Ellie. All you’ve got to do is hire a cab. Any number of them around. No need to have gone hauling me out of my bed. What I want to know is what you’re doing away from home at this ungodly hour.”
“I don’t mean back to him,” she explained. “I mean home to Papa.”
“Back to Sussex? You’ve lost your marbles, my girl. You can’t go back home. You’re married.”