by Jane Ashford
Mary nodded amid the wreckage. “Arthur can fetch some food from an alehouse.”
The boy accepted his mission with alacrity. Turning to deal with the cook’s vapors, Mary rather wished she could go with him.
Eight
The next few days were chaos in the Bexley household, wholly taken up with repairs to the kitchen. A chimney sweep was summoned first thing, but the pipe from the stove had to be removed before he could do a proper job of cleaning. Which meant no cooking could be done—not even a cup of tea or a boiled egg. The household subsisted on bread and cheese and roast fowl and ale from a nearby public house. Mrs. Tanner used the opportunity to take to her bed on the top floor, “prostrate” with nerves.
To Mary’s surprise Kate seemed merely amused by the disruptions, and she rallied round to help. She and Mary worked side by side with Arthur and some hired cleaners to scrub the soot off every surface and utensil in the kitchen and put a new coat of whitewash on the walls. After this long and exhausting chore was at last complete, the maid even coaxed her mother downstairs to see the new closed stove Mary had purchased. Kate made the first pot of tea in the refurbished kitchen, and Mary felt more in charity with her than she ever had before, when the harrowing episode finally came to a close.
The disruptions meant that she fell into bed exhausted each night, however. There seemed no moment in those hectic days to revisit the thrilling scene the fire had interrupted. They didn’t sit down to dinner together, as there was no proper dinner. They didn’t sit cozily in the front parlor of an evening, because there was always another task calling out to be done. Add to that the fact that Arthur had taken to dogging John’s footsteps, his skinny frame practically vibrating with admiration. As often as John kindly sent him away, he was soon creeping back, wide-eyed, reverent, and…intrusive. And so they had scarcely an instant alone. Mary might dream of her heroic husband’s hands on her every night as she slept, but the reality remained otherwise.
Thus, Mary was more than delighted to leave the house for an evening out. William Conolly had invited the Bexleys on an expedition to Vauxhall Gardens as a return of their hospitality. “I thought you would enjoy the illuminations,” he told Mary as he helped her into a hired carriage to begin the journey to the south side of the river. “And Vauxhall closes at the end of September. So you must see it now or wait until spring.”
“I’ve heard a great deal about the place,” said John. He looked very handsome in a new evening coat and snowy shirt.
“What are they like?” Mary wondered.
Conolly would only smile. “Wait and see.”
When they walked under the great paneled archway into the pleasure gardens, the first thing Mary noticed was the crowd. Despite the coolness of the evening, throngs of well-dressed strollers peopled a tree-lined walk stretching into the distance. She could see them perfectly by the light of thousands of glass lamps hung among the branches. The effect was dazzling; the sound of a thousand conversations was a surprising roar in the outdoor setting.
They joined the revelers. With Conolly as guide they walked past fiddlers in cocked hats playing under the gilded cockleshell in the midst of the gardens. They paused to hear singers of comic and sentimental ballads. They watched a group of country dancers, earning applause with much jumping, thumping, and laughter. They marveled over a lady in a spangled costume walking a tightrope and solemnly observed the hermit sitting in his illuminated hermitage. John remarked on the unlighted walks off to the sides, and Conolly told him they were known as places for amorous adventures.
Their host had hired a box for supper, and when they’d tired of walking, they retired there, admiring the mural at the back. Servitors brought the thinly sliced ham for which the place was famous. “They say that a Vauxhall carver slices so thin he could cover the whole garden from a single ham,” Conolly said.
“Making it hardly worth eating,” John replied, prodding the near transparent serving on his plate.
“Still, you must have it,” replied his friend. “You can’t come to Vauxhall and not have the ham.”
“If I must, I must.” John smiled, wrapped the tissue-thin meat around his fork, and ate the whole slice in one bite. “It tastes”—he paused, letting the others wait—“like ham.”
Their mingled laughter buoyed Mary’s heart.
Conolly had also ordered assorted biscuits and cheesecakes and a bowl of the notorious arrack punch. “Take care,” he teased Mary when he dipped her out a cup. “This will go straight to your head.”
Gingerly she tasted the mixture. “What’s in it?”
“I have it on the best authority that it’s made by mixing grains of the benjamin flower with rum.”
“What is benjamin flower?”
“I have no idea.”
“There was some journalist fellow called Benjamin Flower,” John put in. “Ranted against the French war at the beginning. I think they put him in Newgate for sedition or libel or some such thing.” He tried the punch and raised his eyebrows. “Not likely he had anything to do with this mixture.”
“Your husband is a veritable encyclopedia of political knowledge,” Conolly said to Mary. “We are in awe of him at the office.”
This made John laugh. He had the most wonderful laugh, Mary thought. She didn’t hear it nearly enough. She raised her glass to him. “As you should be,” she replied. “He saved our house quite heroically, you know.” She met her husband’s eyes and found she really couldn’t look away.
Smiling, Conolly drank from his own cup. The story of the fire had been fully explored on their way over. “Ah, there’s the Duke of Wellington in that box directly across.”
Mary tore her gaze away from John’s sparkling blue eyes and observed an upright man with a jutting profile. He looked every inch the soldier.
“And that is Wrotherton, one of our leading dandies, four boxes to the left.”
“What happened to his neck?” John wondered.
“A fashion faux pas of a neckcloth,” was the reply.
“It looks like a bandage.”
“Very like,” Conolly agreed. “It’s probably sturdy enough to support a broken neck.”
John laughed again. He was far handsomer than the famous dandy, Mary thought.
Their host pointed out other notables. He seemed to know everyone. Mary began to wonder about his particular friends and habits. “You seem so familiar with the place. Have you been here often?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Fairly.”
“Was there no one else you wished to invite along this evening?” she asked.
He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “A lady, perhaps? Why are married people always so eager to promote matches? Enough that you are happily settled.” It was said with a smile to remove any suggestion of real complaint.
“You don’t wish to marry?”
“My wishes don’t really come into it,” Conolly replied.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s his own affair, Mary,” put in John.
“No, no.” Conolly gestured expansively. He’d had three full cups of the punch. “It’s my family’s position, you see. Creates rather a conundrum for me. The young ladies I meet are looking for a far bigger fortune than I have to offer. They expect to live in the sorts of houses they grew up in and have the same sorts of…comforts. And why shouldn’t they, eh? No doubt they deserve it. But I can’t provide ’em. This or that one may like me but not well enough to give up their luxuries. Yet I’m expected, nay commanded, to get leg-shackled to a girl of my own rank.”
She and John were lucky, Mary thought. Though they didn’t come from excessively wealthy families, they’d each inherited a competence. Put together, the amount was ample for a comfortable life. How would it be if they lived in a set of rooms—as she’d been told Conolly did—with no servants except a landlady. Cramped and…insupportable, she thought
. She would hate it. “Perhaps an heiress will fall in love with you,” she joked a bit uneasily.
Conolly’s wry shrug made her feel gauche. “Their mothers see that they don’t get the chance. And there’s also the little problem of my reputation.”
“Your…?” Was this what she’d sensed in the portrait? Mary wondered. She saw that John was frowning at his friend.
Conolly’s expression shifted. He looked impish. “I played the odd prank at school. My mind just runs that way. The Irish in me, perhaps.”
“Ah, I’d nearly forgotten.” John turned to Mary with another heart-melting smile. “Not only at school,” he said. “I must tell you that Conolly sometimes informs new employees in our office that they are required to provide their own chairs, as the government budget doesn’t cover such expenditures. I actually bought one and was hauling it up the stairs when he took pity on me and told me the truth.”
“And a fine chair it was,” declared Conolly, laughing. “Much better than the poor things they give us to sit on.”
“At least no one else saw me,” said John.
“Didn’t I make sure of that?” protested his friend.
“You did,” John agreed. “And got the porter to let me leave it with him until the end of the day.”
“Is it the chair at your desk in the study?” Mary wondered.
“The very one,” John confirmed.
She laughed. “It’s odd; I recently met someone else who loves playing pranks.”
“Who’s that?” Conolly wanted to know.
Now that she’d said it, she wondered if she shouldn’t have shared this information. But she didn’t see what harm it could do. Caroline hadn’t seemed at all shy about her antics. “Lady Caroline Lanford.” Both men looked surprised. “Our neighbor’s granddaughter,” she reminded John.
“The Golden Minx?” Conolly said. “That’s what society calls her,” he added in response to their puzzled expressions. “Nickname.”
“Do you know her?” Mary asked.
“Oh, quite above my touch,” their host replied.
Something in his tone made Mary glad that the conversation was interrupted just then by the beginning of the fireworks. They got up and went to watch the display from a better vantage point.
John relished the play of colored light over Mary’s face as the rockets burst above them. She looked lovely tonight in a pale yellow gown and dark blue cloak. After the drudgery of putting the house to rights, she deserved a good time, and she looked like she was having fun. So was he, he realized. He must see that it happened far more often.
Immediately, his thoughts filled with other ways that they might enjoy each other’s company—if only their life wasn’t so crammed full of people. He let his gaze rove along the beguiling line of her neck. He watched her chest rise as she oohed over a burst of color above and could almost feel the soft curves beneath the cloth. Tonight, he vowed, when he got her home he would sweep her upstairs before anyone even knew they were there. His body reacted to the thought and the pictures it roused of what would follow. It was time—far past time—to make his marriage whole.
At last, the fireworks ended. They turned away and headed for Vauxhall’s gate. They had nearly reached it when John spotted Fordyce, strolling languidly toward them. His mellow mood evaporated. He took Mary’s arm to steer her away, but the blasted man had seen them.
“Bexley, Conolly,” came the irritating drawl. “How odd. And a…lady.”
He made it sound as if there was something disreputable about Mary’s presence. John felt as if his head was filling with hot coals.
“Mrs. Bexley,” provided Conolly smoothly. “This is Edmund Fordyce. He works with us at the Foreign Office.”
“You’re married?” Fordyce said to John, scarcely acknowledging Mary. “How very…daring of you.”
Mary was examining the newcomer with interest. Fordyce turned and surveyed her, looking insultingly unimpressed. “I don’t suppose I know your people?”
“I don’t suppose you do,” she replied.
Fordyce’s pale eyebrows went up. “Oh my, do you fancy yourself a wit?”
John just barely stopped himself from going for his throat. Slights to himself were one thing; it was quite another to see this damned coxcomb talking to his wife as if she were a presumptuous nobody. Conolly’s tug on his arm did little to divert the fury pumping in his veins.
“We were just going,” Conolly said. “Good night, Fordyce.”
The fellow twiddled his fingers in an insulting farewell. He didn’t say it had been a pleasure to meet Mary or make the least effort at politeness. Something like a growl vibrated in John’s throat. Conolly tugged at his sleeve again. Perhaps he had heard it. “Come along,” he said.
Fordyce turned and walked away from them. John started to let Conolly steer him away. “You know he is trying to vex you,” Conolly murmured, too low for Mary to hear. “Ignore him.”
It was fine to say so. And it was what John habitually did. But with Mary involved…rage burned through him again. That Fordyce would dare treat her so slightingly. The man should be horsewhipped! John pulled his arm from Conolly’s grasp. “You go ahead. I’ll be along in a moment.”
“Bexley. Don’t do anything…”
John ignored his wife’s curious glances from him to Conolly and back again. He turned and strode along the path to catch up with Fordyce. Fortunately, the man was still alone. “You are never to speak to my wife in that way again,” he said to him.
Fordyce raised his thin pale brows. “I beg your pardon?”
“You don’t and never will. Just hear this, should you ever encounter my wife in future…”
“I can’t imagine why I would.”
John just barely resisted grasping the man’s neckcloth and choking him. “…you will treat her with respect.”
“Such heat.” Fordyce made a flicking gesture, as if brushing a speck of dust from his coat. “You may call me out if you think I’ve insulted your little wife.” He put a sardonic twist on the last two words, clearly designed to enrage.
John caught a hint of eagerness in his eyes. Fordyce was just the sort of fellow who would study fencing and keep a pair of dueling pistols. “I’m not going to call you out,” he said contemptuously. “I’m not some creaking antique. Even if dueling weren’t illegal, it’s idiotic. I’m simply telling you that you’ve gone too far. You will stop all your stupid tricks and stay away from me.”
Under John’s glare, Fordyce backed up a step, but he still sneered. “And if I decline to do so?”
John’s rage was like a fine brandy, distilled down to a biting intensity. “I will write a full account of your behavior when the Alceste went down, every cowardly bit of it.”
“No one would believe you…”
“I will produce numerous copies and circulate them around the office, like a broadsheet sold in the streets.” John didn’t particularly like making this threat, but he was mortally tired of Fordyce and his juvenile attitude. “It will create quite the sensation, I imagine. Our colleagues do love to gossip.”
Fordyce stared at him, hatred in his light blue eyes. “You’re a nobody. You wouldn’t dare carry through on that…”
“Oh, I think you’ll find that I will.” John put all his resolve in his voice and expression and watched Fordyce quail. “If you had left me alone, I would have done the same for you,” he added. “I have no interest in telling tales. But you would keep on. Believe me, I will do this unless you disappear from my life.”
Fordyce’s hands closed into fists and opened again. “I can’t help seeing you at the office,” he said, a hint of fear in his tone.
“You know what I mean,” replied John. Satisfied that he was understood, John turned to catch up with his party.
“Not a very pleasant man,” Mary tried when John found them again ou
tside the gates. The tension between John and Fordyce had been palpable.
“He won’t trouble you again,” said John.
“I wasn’t troubled, particularly.” What was the glitter in John’s eyes? “He was just rude.”
“Rude! He spoke to you as if…”
He broke off, and as Conolly asked a Vauxhall footman to summon their hired carriage, Mary realized that her husband wanted to protect her from this Fordyce person. Though she hadn’t felt much affected by the snub of a complete stranger, John’s response touched her deeply. It made her long to throw herself into his arms and show him how much she admired and appreciated him. She would do exactly that, she vowed, the moment they reached home.
Unfortunately this was not soon. There was an interminable wait for their carriage. Everyone seemed to be leaving Vauxhall at the same time, and the servitors gave precedence to the carriages of the noble guests. Vehicles jostled and blocked each other until none of them could move. Coachmen shouted and cursed; horses shied and snapped. Impatient revelers added to the chaos by wading in and pulling at bridles and reins, making things worse as far as Mary could see.
The hour grew later. Their carriage was nowhere to be seen. After her intense exertions of the last few days, Mary grew tired. She tried not to be impatient. Conolly was doing his best to hurry matters, but there wasn’t much he could do. It was more than an hour before they found their vehicle, and then they were forced to weave slowly through the press of carriages, all trying to be first away.
And when at last they were free of the mass, even stops and starts and cobblestones couldn’t keep Mary from falling asleep on the long ride across London. She fought the fatigue and the effects of the Vauxhall punch, but sleep dragged at her with a power like the sea. She couldn’t help but succumb.
John carried his sleeping wife through their front door and up the stairs to her bedchamber. At the feel of her body in his arms desire dizzied him. He could not wait any longer. Undoing the clasp of her cloak and letting it fall, he laid her on her bed. “Mary?” He untied the strings of her bonnet and eased it off.