The Honorable Marksley

by Sherry Lynn Ferguson

  “I suppose you saw many of your acquaintance in London last week?” she asked him.

  “I did,” he responded, surprised by the question. “Naturally, with the impending changes at The Tantalus and the alteration in my circumstances there was much to which to attend”

  She seemed uncertain, even troubled as she played with a blade of grass and looked away from him. “And did you inform them of our marriage?”

  “I did,” he repeated, puzzled by the direction of her questions. “Those few whom I wished to inform. As I mentioned, our alliance was cause for some sensational attention amongst the ton. We are better out of it.” He examined her face. “There is no need for you to prepare correspondence, if that is what concerns you”

  “Did you tell Caroline Chalmers?”

  At once he understood. But he did not answer as quickly. Instead he moved to sit down on the ground beside her, and attempted to find a comfortable position for his long legs and booted feet.

  “There is no Caroline Chalmers,” he told her again, resting his arms on his raised knees. “Only Lady Wrethingwell-Drummond, the Dowager Marchioness of Wrethingwell-Drummond. And pray,” he smiled at her, “do not force me to say that mouthful too often.”

  “You told me that you had cared … I mean, the accepted thinking seemed to be-”

  “The accepted thinking is nonsense. I am not in love with the woman, although many years ago I inanely believed myself to be. She was, in fact, almost the death of me. Had I been even an ounce more reckless, my days might have been considerably shorter.” As her eyes widened, he explained, “Miss Caroline enjoyed the affections of many. Her preference seemingly settled on me, to my great joy, until one of my thickwitted rivals took it into his head to demand a duel. When I realized that Caroline thrilled at the prospect that one or both of us might die for her, my attachment suffered a sea change. I purchased my commission that day and left for the Peninsula even before my affairs were settled. Caroline spurned the bloodthirsty fool, who, by the way, now has a wife and two children. He lives in Richmond, my dear,” he added, looking directly at her, “you might have occasion to meet him. Not a scar on `im, whereas I have several. Anyway,” he looked away as his wife’s cheeks turned pink, “Caroline wrote that she would wait for me, though we were never pledged. But within three months she had wed old Bellis, a man with little to recommend him, apart from an ancient title and a fat purse.”

  “You were not bitter?”

  “Oh certainly. I was young, besotted with a woman whom independent observers termed one of the most beautiful in the land. But Caroline had always been too free with everything fortune bestowed on her-feeling, friendship, favors-and managed to devalue them all. I consider myself well away from her. My only regret is that my name continues to be bandied about with hers. Even in places like Squire Lawes’s dining room,” he added pointedly, “though she has been widowed mere months”

  “And now you have been compelled to this.”

  “I have compelled myself. It was and is the right thing to do” He looked at her very steadily. “You may hear the lady’s name again. I hope that will not distress you. You are now my wife, which fact should silence any further speculation. You may be spared what I was not.”

  He read more in her gaze, but whatever the thought, she did not voice it. Perhaps she did not believe she could trust him to preserve her from speculation of a different nature.

  “Hallie,” he said. “We have not discussed one aspect of this arrangement that may concern you. A wife’s obligations-”

  “My lord,” she interrupted quickly, “Miss Binkin has explained.”

  “Miss Binkin has?” How astonishing, then, that his wife was not pale and trembling. “The formidable Miss Binkin has unanticipated talents,” he said mildly. “But let me assure you that I have no intention of claiming anything you have no wish to give. And that until you are ready, if ever you so choose, I will conduct myself discreetly.”

  She looked away from him and continued to play with the grass. “Thank you, my lord.” Her reserve bothered him.

  “Please call me Richard. `Twould please me”

  “Thank you … Richard.”

  His name still sounded like “my lord” He was pondering, still disturbed, why she should discomfit him so, when she surprised him by saying, “Mrs. Lawes tells me there is a gypsy encampment just beyond Denhurst. Should it not be a great trouble to you … Richard … I would very much enjoy a visit to see it.”

  “Gypsies?” he asked. “They interest you?”

  “Yes” She tilted her chin as though he had challenged her. “They live so differently. And a friend of mine, and of my late father’s, has studied them. But I have never seen them.”

  “Then we shall most definitely visit. That may be a couple of days from now, however, as I have some business to see to”

  “Thank you” She again looked away.

  “Hallie,” he said, then paused. Something in him chose to savor the name. “Hallie, if possible I should like to share my home with more than a polite stranger. Is it possible we might make an effort?”

  She nodded her head, but still refused to look at him, and he, who had had evidence of her confidence, of her spirit, recognized his disappointment in her reticence. What was wrong with her today? The wedding had changed her. The ordeal had been brutish.

  His lips thinned as he rose to leave her. He thought time alone might restore her balance, but he stood still when she stared up at him. Her eyes were suspiciously bright as she clutched her book to her bodice.

  “What is it, my dear?” he asked softly.

  “You know little about me, my lord-Richard.”

  “I hope to know you better,” he said easily, though her expression made him feel anything but easy.

  “And you must truly surrender The Tantalus?”

  “It is likely.” He frowned as she lowered her head. “But you mustn’t fret over this. The time I spent with it is not something you would have understood” He watched with concern as she averted her face. “I should leave you to collect yourself. Please do not worry about this matter. I have told you before, you should not permit it to distress you”

  He bowed, though she did not turn to him, and left her still sitting there. In doing so, he wondered if he were not failing his new bride, but her anxiety regarding The Tantalus struck him as disproportionate to her interests. He was, after all, trying to make some time to entertain a wife. She would simply have to calm herself.

  “Milord,” Gibbs greeted him at the back terrace doors. “Lord Jeremy has arrived. With luggage.” He sniffed dramatically.

  Richard ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “This is most unexpected, Gibbs. He sent no word”

  “There was a letter to Lady Langsford, milord. To the Viscountess.”

  “To Lady-” For a moment Richard stared at him. “Indeed. Well, Gibbs, we owe you an apology. I am certain my lady would never have intentionally failed to inform you.”

  “No, milord. Certainly not. The letter just arrived, milord. Addressed to Miss Ashton” Again Richard stared at him.

  “Where is he then, Gibbs?” he managed at last.

  “He awaits you in the parlor, milord.”

  Richard walked on into the house. Something was amiss: that he should find his wife eager to visit gypsies, see her near tears over his abandonment of The Tantalus, then have Jeremy descend upon them-a visit she had failed to relay to him. Yes, something was clearly amiss, but he was dashed if he knew what it was.

  Jeremy Asquith, strikingly attired in rose jacquard waistcoat, cream cravat, bottlegreen coat and gold buckskins, stood resplendently considering the portrait of Richard’s mother.

  “What a charming creature she must have been,” he observed as Richard stopped in the doorway. Jeremy glanced over his shoulder at him. “I have never seen any resemblance.”

  “More’s the pity,” Richard said, stepping warily into the room. He felt as though everyone and everythi
ng around him were part of an elaborate trap. “I am the spitting image of my father.”

  Jeremy surveyed the matching portrait opposite. “That is not much of a hardship, my friend. I have told you so before. You should contemplate your good fortune daily.”

  “I would happily contemplate it, Jeremy, if I had a spare minute in which to contemplate much of anything. But the past few weeks have been devilishly busy” As he spoke, he subjected Jeremy to a cynical gaze. “My good fortune at present consists of ascending to a title I never chose, relinquishing the avocation I did choose, and landing myself a wife who would never have chosen me.”

  Jeremy stared at him.

  “You married her,” he said flatly.

  “Miss Ashton is now the Viscountess Langsford,” Richard affirmed, wondering why it should bother him that Jeremy looked suddenly too pale. “When Reginald died I had no choice.”

  “I … see” Jeremy cleared his throat. “And when were you married?”

  “Yesterday. Had you been here, I would have asked you to stand up with me.”

  “I would have been honored, Richard. And you have my sincere congratulations. Hallie Ashton is a most unusual prize, as you may perhaps have discovered?”

  It seemed to Richard that Jeremy’s query, accompa nied as it was by a look of curious anticipation, was too suggestive. “Just what would you be intimating, Asquith?” he asked sharply, then immediately checked himself.

  One of Jeremy’s russet eyebrows shot high.

  “Easy, my friend. I spoke only in generalities. Far be it from me to intrude upon your privacy.”

  “Deuce take it, Jeremy! You know why I married the girl. Must you make a joke of this?”

  “I am not making a joke of it. Although it seems that you, foolishly, are determined to do so” With his distinctive gait, Jeremy moved to a wing chair and, displaying some ceremony, took a seat. “I think I shall remove to the Threepenny Arms in town. I have no wish to spoil the honeymoon”

  Richard glowered at him, but Jeremy merely twirled a quizzing glass from long, graceful fingers.

  “Quit with that, Jeremy,” Richard said impatiently. “You know your vision is superb.”

  Jeremy smiled, but put the glass away. “I should like to know three things, Richard. First, the particulars regarding Reginald’s demise. Second, your obviously-flawed reasoning behind the absurdity of abandoning The Tantalus. And third … how is your wife?”

  “My wife is fine,” Richard snapped.

  “I should like to see for myself before my departure. With your permission, of course, Richard. But the other matters?”

  Richard told him curtly of Reginald’s mishap. He expanded a bit more upon his decision to withdraw from The Tantalus. When the tea tray arrived with victuals enough for twelve, Jeremy continued his protests between bites of food.

  “It will not do, Richard,” he argued. “There is no need for such an extreme. You would not be the first peer to engage in literary endeavors. Indeed, the pursuit is enjoying a certain fashion, as you well know. There must be something more, compadre mio. You are not being entirely frank.”

  Richard shrugged his shoulders. “I do not have the heart to continue, Jeremy. To battle so much at once. You might wish to know, since you claimed to enjoy the fellow’s work as well, that Beecham has published elsewhere. I discovered it quite by chance. If he cannot be loyal to The Tantalus, or at least have clarified his outsized aspirations, I haven’t the desire to continue. I shan’t nurture ungrateful whelps.”

  Jeremy choked on a piece of biscuit. A fit of coughing resulted, only eased after some minutes and several large gulps of tea. By that time Richard had at last taken a seat.

  “Are you absolutely certain,” Jeremy’s voice sounded hoarse, “that Beecham bolted? To whom?”

  “I do not yet know, although I have taken steps to determine that. Miss Ashton-Lady Langsfordquoted something to me that Beecham had sent me in a letter. She could not recall the source. Unless Beecham has appropriated someone else’s work-which I cannot bring myself to believe, given the quality of his correspondence-he must have published elsewhere”

  “I … see” Jeremy was grimacing, an expression of such concentrated discomfort that he looked truly hideous.

  “You look most peculiar, Jeremy. Is there something you wish to say?”

  «I?»

  Richard looked away from him, out to the garden, and drummed the fingers of his right hand against the chair arm.

  “My wife thinks me a complete cad,” he mused aloud, unconsciously changing the subject.

  “Hallie was always a most observant young lady.”

  Richard shot Jeremy a look of exasperation. “I have not been anything less than reasonable,” he protested.

  “Surely not. How could you be? The renowned R.E. Marksley, now heir to Penham, deigning to marry so lowly a creature in order to preserve her good name. Why, she must be overjoyed.”

  “You are quite wrong,” Richard bit out. “If we had not wed, Miss Ashton would have been sold off to some farmer’s son or sent to a nunnery”

  “Are you so certain?”

  “I had as much from her uncle.”

  “And you have made it quite clear to her just how much of a favor you have bestowed?”

  “Not in the manner you infer. But she must know that to be the case. And it has not been so very awful for her. I have been most solicitous.” He did not volunteer that he had just left his wife weeping. He rose and moved to look out at the lawns.

  “Richard, my friend, any woman-every womanno matter her station in life, desires to be honored, to be thought worthy of respect and affection.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Richard said, then looked more closely at Jeremy. “You suspect me of failing in that regard?”

  “It certainly sounds it.”

  “I assure you I have been most scrupulously respectful of my wife.” Richard firmed his lips and again focused on the view out back. He could see that Hallie had roused herself and was walking slowly back along a hedgerow and path that led to the house.

  He heard Jeremy once again choking on something.

  “For heaven’s sake, Jeremy, if you cannot eat properly, at least try to consume less”

  “I was simply surprised, Richard. How long do you anticipate this state of … suspension will continue?”

  “As long as the lady desires it.” He continued to watch her approach the house. She stopped every few feet to look at the sky, or survey a view, or watch a bird or squirrel. He found himself wanting to know what she was thinking.

  “Richard,” Jeremy drew his attention again. “I have been mulling over Beecham. It simply does not make any sense to me that he would send work elsewhere. You and The Tantalus have been too good to him.”

  “I should say,” Richard agreed.

  “So might it not be simple happenstance that the wording of a phrase is similar?”

  “Possibly,” Richard said idly, his attention now inexplicably absorbed by his wife’s slow progress.

  “Richard,” Jeremy said, this time more urgently, “have you ever wondered whether Henry Beecham might be a woman?”

  Watching Hallie stoop just then to pick up and examine a fallen leaf, Richard did not at first register the question. The words seemed to echo about in his head for a moment before he comprehended their meaning. He studied his new wife and wondered what sort of a woman would pretend to be a man.

  “Impossible,” he said shortly.

  “Why less possible than that two different people should pen the same words?”

  Richard turned to stare at Jeremy.

  “I have never considered it,” he said. “Why should you do so? What would be the motive in dissembling?”

  “Is not publication enough of a motive for a writer such as Beecham?”

  “The Tantalus would have published Beecham whatever his-or her-sex.”

  “Truly, Richard? I always believed as much. Then perhaps if a woman felt herself to be flouting h
er family’s, or even society’s, rules and expectations? A serious pursuit of literature is rarely encouraged in a female”

  “True,” Richard said. “But have you ever had any indication that Beecham might be other than a man? I had no notion you maintained a correspondence”

  “I have never corresponded with Henry Beecham. I know, from you, that he is hermitical in the extreme. It simply occurred to me that such an explanation might account for your difficulty in locating the chap.”

  Richard smiled grimly. “If anyone, man or woman, chooses not to be found, it can be remarkably difficult to defeat that purpose. I have tried.”

  “Perhaps we might ask your wife’s opinion, as I understand she has … a fondness for poetry.”

  “An excellent idea. You might ask her yourself, as she is just returned, and I, unfortunately, have some letters to write.” He moved even as he spoke, reaching the doorway as Hallie entered. He noticed her eager expression and dry eyes as her gaze sought Jeremy. Richard had no desire to observe their fond reunion.

  “My dear,” he said, “here is our good friend wishing to satisfy himself of your welfare. I pray you will set his mind at ease. But please excuse me from your company. Some pressing matters will not wait.” He bowed, but not before he noted the sudden shadows in her beautiful eyes, whether from distress or anger he did not know and did not stay to discover.

  Jeremy unfurled his long length from his chair and stood to survey her through a quizzing glass. For some endless period he did not say a word, even after she had moved to stand before him.

  “Well,” he said at last. “I thought at first you were someone known to me. But now I see that you are clearly a stranger.”

  “Do not scold, Jeremy,” Hallie implored him. She pressed her palms together and started to pace. “I could conceive of no way to avoid this. In my place what would you have done?”

  “I would not have been in your place, Hallie. I believe I gave you the benefit of my sage advice some time ago”

  If anything she paced with more agitation. “Yes, you are quite right. I have been unutterably foolish. But now?”