The Marriage Bargain

by Blaise Kilgallen

  “’Twas Earl Leathem what saved her gettin’ her throat cut. I heard he pounded Miss Emily’s uncle into a bloody pulp with his bare hands. If you ask me, the earl’s a real hero.”

  “Good grief, Emily never told me that either.” Willy frowned until her brow cleared. “I shall want more of the gory details from her. She was very naughty not to tell me everything,” Willy added with a sassy smile. “I’ll make sure she tells me each and every teensy detail, not just what she left out.”

  Wilma spent the next quarter hour repeating stories about Emily and Betsy to her husband. “I did read Eustace Dancy was in the Tower before we arrived in Surrey,” Porter went on, “but I knew little of the critical details and cared even less to read about the man.”

  “He’s Emily’s adopted uncle, Harry, not a blood relative. Her grandparents rescued him from the streets of White Chapel many years ago. He ran away from them as a boy. And like the prodigal son, he would appear without warning in Toynton-under-Hill to demand funds from the Dancys.”

  “Ahh, I see. But you told me he was released from the Tower. I wonder how that happened. Then he shows up in Kent. I never read the dailies while we were here, and I missed browsing London’s gossip about Dancy or French spies. The only gossip I heard of any import was about a curricle race in Green Park between two of my foolish Corinthian friends. Both ended up with broken bones and damaged vehicles. Thank goodness, the animals were spared injury!”

  “I still don’t know all the details either,” Wilma responded, sending her husband a knowing smile. “But never mind that, darling, let’s go below and mingle, hmm? I believe the earl has promised to escort Emily to tonight’s festivities.”

  Chapter 20

  LILIANNE and her maid, Penny, sat anxiously waiting in Lady Parcells’ parlor. Lydia, her swollen ankle swathed in a pristine bandage, arrived to confront the giggling pair as she was rolled inside with her chair. “What do you have to say for yourselves?” She began without explanation, her harsh tones highlighting her obvious irritation.

  Lilianne angled a sidewise glance at her maid, but seeing no help there, she murmured what may have meant to be an abject apology. “It was a very short swim, Great Aunt…”

  “Shush! Keep quiet and listen to me, gel!” Lydia snapped back at her sharply. “Short or long, it would have ruined your reputation once and for all if anyone saw you cavorting about in wet underclothes! Did you even consider that?”

  Lilianne blinked, sneaking another quick peek at Penny, whose eyes were squeezed shut.

  The girls had been excused from deportment classes earlier that day, because Lydia needed to meet with her steward and had excused the two from lessons, reminding them things would begin again right after lunch.

  The day had begun bright and sunny, and unusually warm for May, so the girls decided to go for a stroll, chatting merrily as they headed to a small pond surrounded by trees behind the mansion. A long wooden pier had been constructed outward from the woods’ edge. Tied to it was a flat-bottomed skiff with a pair of wooden oars. As the girls approached the dock, Lilianne eyed the boat.

  “Where I come from everyone knows how to row,” she told Penny. “It’s not difficult once you get the hang of it.”

  “Me mum would skin me alive iffen I got inta one of them risky things.”

  Penny’s mention of her mother had Lilianne recalling how her parents rarely paid much attention to her. She drew in a long inhale. Mostly, she did what she felt like without much supervision.

  “I bet I can row that skiff easy,” Lilianne said quietly. Without stopping to think, she lowered her backside onto the dock’s weathered planks, and threw her feet and legs over the side. The pond’s surface was ruffled by a light breeze. Below her, the boat rocked gently atop tiny waves.

  “The pond doesn’t look very deep, Penny,” Lilianne said, pointing a finger. “Look, you can see two fish swimming near the bottom.” With that, Lilianne slid off the dock, her feet landing in the center of the skiff.

  “Miss Lili! No! Ye’ll get drownded!” Penny’s countrified twang came out in times of excitement or stress.

  Lilianne squatted on the board seat in the skiff and grabbed the pair of oars tucked in the oarlocks. “Come on, Penny, jump down. I’ll row us out on the pond.”

  “Oh, no, not me!” The girl refused, vehemently shaking her head. “You go! I’ll watch!”

  “Well, now I can tell you are a silly, chickenhearted wimp! Never mind, I’ll go by myself. Now…just untie that rope!”

  Reluctant to do what she was asked, still Penny did what she was told after Lilianne asked her a second time. Undoing the knots, Penny dropped the coarse hemp rope into the skiff as if it were a live snake. Immediately, the skiff slowly drifted away from the dock. It took Lilianne a few minutes to get the feel of rowing the oars in unison again, but she was soon skimming across the pond’s surface.

  Penny watched unhappily from the shore.

  “See, you silly gudgeon,” Lilianne called to her maid, taunting Penny from her place in the flat-bottomed boat. “I told you it was easy!”

  Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew across the water, and tore Lilianne’s bonnet off. Her hat splashed into the water. Laughing, Lilianne reached over to retrieve it, but she leaned out a little too far, and lost her balance and tumbled into the pond. Several petticoats and her gown soon dragged her under.

  Penny jumped up and down on the shore screeching and watching what was happening. “Oh, Gawd! Miss Lili! Yer been drownded!” She screamed, terrified, as her mistress disappeared beneath the pond’s placid surface. Pitiful squeaks and anxious whimpers now escaped Penny’s trembling lips as she stood there shaking. Fingers clapped over her mouth, her blue eyes round with fright as she appeared rooted to the pond’s shore, unable to do anything to help.

  Seconds later, Lilianne’s head popped up from beneath the pond’s surface. She grabbed at the skiff and hung on to it to catch her breath. Lili learned how to swim early in life, but as she grew older, she had few opportunities to do so. However, learning to swim was something you didn’t usually forget, like riding horseback. So Lili didn’t panic. What worried her more was the wet, heavy fabric tangling around her legs and feet and dragging her down. So, she held onto the skiff with one hand and shimmied out of her gown and petticoats, draping them over the side of the boat. Then, kicking her feet behind her, she pushed the lightweight skiff in front of her until she reached the shore.

  The pair of miscreants hurried back to the mansion and up to Lilianne’s bedchamber without being caught. Unfortunately, Lilianne couldn’t easily hide the dripping garments. A housemaid saw her with them, and snitched on her.

  The girls now waited for the ax to fall, uncertain what punishment would be meted out to them by Lady Parcells. Because Lydia arrived and scolded them harshly, neither girl dared giggle. Penny’s hands continued to tremble beneath the stern gaze of the gray-haired noblewoman who was teaching Lilianne how to be a lady.

  Lilianne, however, was less intimidated. Having run wild as a child, she escaped trouble by innate cleverness and careful dint of will. “I could not let Penny’s words go unchallenged, Great Aunt,” she said. “She dared me, so I—”

  She could manage the punishment Lady Parcells meted out—probably nothing more than a lengthy diatribe about unladylike behavior.

  “Oh, Miss Lili, ye knows I dint mean that,” Penny jumped in, groaning pitifully.

  “What did you say, gel?” Lydia asked, her full attention now on the young maid.

  “I was ’fraid Miss Lilianne would get drownded,” Penny explained. Her words were uttered so quietly they were barely audible. “I tole her me mum would skin me alive iffen I went out in that thing.” Penny then covered her face in her hands and whined.

  Sharp, cobalt eyes now bored into the earl’s ward. “Well?” Lydia asked, her voice sharpened to a razor’s edge. “Do you wish to tell me about it, Miss Fielding?”

  “Great Aunt
, I’m dreadfully sorry. I truly am,” Lilianne said, sounding subdued. “I fibbed because Penny didn’t really dare me.”

  Lydia’s forehead wrinkled. Her icy silence halted the pair of miscreants from spouting any further excuses. A chill crossed the air in the room and Lydia directed her next words to Penny. “You may leave us, Penelope. I wish to talk with Lilianne alone.”

  Penny rose hurriedly, bobbing a quick curtsy and shooting a concerned glance at Lilianne who returned it with a forced smile.

  “Well, missy,” Lydia began after the maid exited. “What am I to do with you?” she asked rhetorically. An audible sigh escaped her as she peered into the face of the earl’s young ward. The aging peeress gripped the armrests of her rolling chair with arthritic fingers and waited for the girl to respond. Her expression remained unchanged when she added, “I wonder what your parents would say about your unladylike misbehavior.”

  “My parents would neither scold me nor forgive me, Aunt,” the girl replied saucily. “Both knew I could swim. But I s’pose neither would be happy that I wore my new gown to go swimming.”

  “Don’t you dare be so impertinent with me, young lady!” Irate sparks snapped at Lilianne from Lydia’s blue eyes. “Swimming is not the worst problem,” Lydia added, chiding the girl as she maintained her forbidding glare.

  “I thought I taught you better.” Lydia’s scowl deepened slightly. “But I see now there are things you never absorbed during my lessons. Either because you don’t concentrate, or because you object to what I deem is a lady’s proper behavior. At times, I believe you are off somewhere, fantasizing. Good heavens, gel, you must learn to behave with certain propriety when you’re out in aristocratic company. You are no longer a child, Miss Fielding, you are a young woman. And a rather willful one, I suspect.”

  Lydia paused and waited, but when Lilianne said nothing, she went on. “As Gavin’s ward you will be invited to the season’s most prestigious entertainments. You will mingle with wealthy and titled members of London’s ton. My dear, you dare not embarrass the earl.”

  “I am not upper class, Great Aunt. I know that. Leathem is my guardian only because of some strange quirk of fate. If he could, I think he would rather forget the matter entirely.”

  “I tend to agree with you.” Lydia coughed, her lips twitching wryly. “But, as you know, it isn’t the case. My nephew was brought up to be both honest and honorable, and he will do what is expected of him. So—he will do what is needed to get you launched—and married—as soon as possible.”

  Lilianne inhaled. Slowly, she straightened her slim shoulders and bent toward the older woman. “The thing is, Aunt, I don’t wish to be launched nor married. I don’t wish to come out. I don’t wish to attend London’s silly tea parties, fancy balls, or…or push a needle and thread through an embroidery hoop. I want to experience different, exciting things, not be leg-shackled to some stranger I scarcely know.

  Lydia’s eyebrows jumped skyward, her blue eyes wide with astonishment. “Oh? And what exactly does that mean? What are those things you wish to experience if I may be so bold as to ask?”

  Lilianne’s gaze met the flashing eyes of Gavin’s aunt where a spark winked deep in those blue depths. “I mean to explore interesting and divergent paths, but I haven’t made up my mind yet what I should choose,” Lilianne responded, her voice hesitant, her gaze meshing with Lydia’s.

  “My, my,” Lydia murmured, “I would never have guessed.” A queer smile formed on her lips and she cleared her throat.

  “I want to know about…everything…everything that is available to me, Aunt. I dreamt so many different dreams. I want to find happiness, but I don’t want to bind myself to a man whose ideas may stifle or destroy mine. And I’m young, Aunt. I don’t know what is waiting around the bend for me. I hope what I want will end my restlessness. And when the time is ripe, I’ll know it. Something or someone will claim my final interest. Then I’ll be happy and content.”

  Lili lowered her gaze and stared down at her folded hands. “There has to be more to life than making calls, Aunt, chatting aimlessly, or dancing. Boring things that hold no interest for me…things that go on each season year after year.”

  Lilianne captured Lydia’s complete affection when she asked something truly outlandish. “Tell me, Great Aunt, were you unhappy when you married a man you didn’t love? Someone who bought you, owned you, body and soul, like a fancy carriage or a new horse. A man who had control over everything you did and even thought, everything you believed should belong intrinsically part of you and you alone?”

  Hearing that extraordinary question from the young woman sitting across from her, Lydia gasped out loud. She remembered those same thoughts boiling through her mind forty years or more ago. She never wished to give up her independence, never wished to dive into the unsatisfactory, murky, marital waters. Unfortunately, she didn’t learn how to row or swim. That came later when her husband’s demise permitted her to navigate, unencumbered, through the turbulent river of London’s haute ton and seek her own destiny.

  Lydia acquired more than one lover when she became a relatively young, popular, and wealthy widow. Her soul mate, her true love, had been already married with several children when they met and fell in love. His was a marriage of convenience as hers had been. Those two glorious years they spent together evaporated when the Marquess of Tyne succumbed to an unknown malady that took him off this earth within weeks of its onset. Lydia had then packed up her belongings in London and disappeared, retiring to Oxfordshire to mourn him. Alone. Until she was able to face the world again some years later.

  So, she understood what Lilianne Fielding was saying…thinking…and feeling.

  But how could she explain Leathem’s ward’s rebellion to him? She may be able to persuade him to delay the chit’s come out and not push Lilianne into the jaws of London’s Polite Society quite yet. Actually, in her opinion, the girl wasn’t ready. Nor was Lilianne willing. If she had more time, it would help. But she would need some months to tutor his ward properly. She had grown quite fond of the girl after Leathem brought Lilianne to visit. It would be no hardship to keep her here and work with her. She could finish the job by next year’s season. After all, Lilianne was only seventeen, and definitely countrified. Lydia wondered if she ever attended a proper school at all. And she believed it was wrong to force the girl into things for which she wasn’t ready. It would only portend an unhappy future.

  “I will take your wishes under advisement, missy,” Lydia told the girl. “You and Penelope may now join me at luncheon. We will continue our lessons afterward.” With those curt words, Lydia dismissed Lilianne and slowly rolled away in her chair.

  I must write Leathem, ask him not to return his ward to London quite yet. And remind him to look for a suitable wife.

  Chapter 21

  “YOU look mighty fine, m’lord. Is there a lady you wish to impress t’night?”

  “You’ll know soon enough,” Gavin replied gruffly, straightening his shirt cuffs under his jacket sleeves while answering his valet’s curiosity. “And, Jordan, don’t wait up for me. The ball will run late. Meanwhile you can pack. We leave here tomorrow.”

  “Aye, m’lord. I’ve already packed most everything except your riding clothes.”

  “Good.” Gavin glanced at his pocket watch and saw it was precisely two minutes to ten. He exited his chamber and strolled toward Emily’s room. He expected to acquire a wife within a couple of hours. A lovely and courageous young woman who had intrigued him the moment he met her. Besides, he discovered she had aristocratic forbears on her mother’s side. If she weren’t a true lady, she looked and behaved like one. She was certainly aristocratic enough for him. He offered Emily a business contract, but now he wanted much more from her. She maybe unsophisticated and somewhat naïve, but he couldn’t deny the strong feelings he felt for her. He delighted in her company. Time and again, he tried to bury those persistent emotions—like attraction and love—stirring h
is psyche. Damnation, he may have fallen in love with her without knowing it. Long ago, he vowed not to become enthralled by another female. But Emily Dancy burrowed beneath his skin. So much so, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Carnal pictures of making love to her everyday crept into his mind.

  Gavin hesitated before Emily’s door. He took a deep breath, easing the tightness in his chest. He would learn her answer tonight. Surely, she wouldn’t refuse him simply because of his “unromantic” proposal. But he would make it up to her later. There would be sweet words she probably wanted to hear as soon as she said yes. He’d show her other ways, too. What began as a farce—a marriage of convenience—would never again be construed as “a business agreement” in his mind.

  * * * *

  While Betsy fussed with Emily’s recalcitrant tresses, her mind this evening had centered on the earl.

  “Miss Emily,” Betsy smiled, tucking the last curl into place at the vanity table, “the earl should be at yer door about now. ’Tis a minute or so before ten o’clock, and ye look all the crack tonight.”

  “Only because of your magic fingers, Betsy.” Emily returned the maid’s smile. “Thank you, again.”

  The maid ducked her head in appreciation of her efforts. “The earl will swallow his tongue when he sees ye in that gown.”

  Emily wanted to dazzle the earl tonight. She saved the ice pink gown she purchased in London for the duke’s final, elaborate ball. It was the loveliest frock she had ever laid her eyes upon. She purchased it knowing she may never have a chance to wear it. Now the lush fabric slid through her fingers, smooth and soft as a kitten’s fur. Tiny, puffed sleeves hung on the edges of her shoulders. The neckline swooped gracefully over the deep décolletage between her breasts. Elaborate, embroidered beadwork sparkled along the gown’s hem.

  Emily ran nervous palms over the fabric, suddenly remembering the earl’s hands and his bruised knuckles, the strong fingers of a man who fought so valiantly to save her from what could have been a murderous attack. Emily inhaled before another moment of stress almost closed her throat. Should she refuse him anything at all after he saved her from her uncle?