“He’s already dead,” she murmured into the front of his now-damp dressing gown. “They sent him to the front to get rid of him. His wife blames me for that.”
“She would have been a widow soon enough anyway. And better off without the muckworm.”
Marian stepped back, out of his awkward embrace, to blow her nose. Hugh felt damp—and bereft, somehow. “But she told all of the other women,” Marian said when she was through, “that I had thrown myself at her husband. No one would speak to me. And she wrote to her sister, who is married to Viscount Aldersham, so everyone in London knows of my disgrace and humiliation.”
Hugh scratched his head. “I never shot a woman before. There is a first time for everything, I suppose.”
She sniffled. “You cannot stop gossip with a pistol ball.”
“No, but I can kill it with a ring. Do you think that anyone would snub a marchioness, a future duchess? The daughter-in-law of one of the proudest, most powerful noblemen in the empire? Not in this lifetime, they won’t.”
“Perhaps the political hostesses will overlook my history for your father’s sake, but the high sticklers in the ton never will.”
“Who? My godmother, my cousin, my sister’s mother-in-law? They are all patronesses of Almack’s, you know. That’s the only reason I am still allowed into the wretched place. But you will be welcomed with open arms, I promise. You will have invitations to all the fetes and festivities your father denied you. Unless you prefer the country? I own a pretty cottage in Richmond, and another place in Somerset.”
“I adored London the few short times I visited. The shops and the theater…”
Hugh was relieved, until he thought of the chaps whose wives were stashed in the shires so the husbands could continue their wenching. Perhaps marriage wouldn’t be so bad if he had to spend only a few weeks a year with his wife. No, he did not want a polite, distant, occasional relation with the mother of his children. He’d never thought long enough about marriage to decide what he expected from it besides grandsons for the duke, but now the idea of leading separate lives did not sound appealing. It might be fun to introduce Marian to his friends and his pastimes in town, once she was dressed more presentably, of course. “Then London it is, except for visits now and again to the country. You’ll have new clothes, new friends, a hundred new experiences every day.”
“But I will be married.”
“Aye, there’s the rub. To me.”
When she made a whimpering sound instead of chuckling as he expected, Hugh said, “It is not a fate worse than death, you know.” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice that she was so appalled at the match. He was not getting any great bargain, either, but no one heard him complaining. Well, Kirby had, and the dog, but they did not count. Perhaps Lady Marian would do better in the country, after all. He wanted no unwilling wife to play the martyr.
“But you do not wish to marry me.” Tears started to fill her eyes again. They were quite lovely eyes, he noted, despite the redness.
“No, I do not wish to marry anyone. It is nothing personal. But I do not believe either of us has a choice anymore, so what do you say? Shall we make a match of it?”
She started to rearrange the medicine bottles on the nightstand. Her face was averted, so he could not see her expression, but he could recognize misery even from the back. “I swear I will try to be a good husband,” he said, “although I have no experience.”
“You had no experience being a soldier and look where that got you.”
Was that a joke? From the ice maiden? Hugh took it as a good sign that she was warming a little. “I seldom drink to excess, rarely lose my temper, never gamble away more than I can afford. If you are worried about the, ah, intimacies of marriage, we can delay that until we know each other better.” And until he consulted with a London physician.
She stood straighter, as if a weight were lifted off her shoulders.
He went on. “But if we find we do not suit, we can conduct our lives as many other couples do, with courtesy, and discretion, and distance. So what do you say?”
“Yes.”
“‘Yes’? Just that? After I have made my first and, hopefully, last ever proposal of marriage, all you can say is yes? What, do you want me to get down on my knees? We both know I’d never be able to get up, if I did not fall on my face at your feet.”
She took a deep breath and said, “Yes, my lord, I shall accept your eloquent and gracious offer of marriage. I am struck speechless by the honor you are bestowing upon me. And if I had one other choice in all this world, by heaven, I would take it.”
Hugh did not dare kiss her to seal their engagement. The woman was liable to box his ears. He did raise her hand to his lips though. “You’ll see. It won’t be so bad.” Not so bad? Hugh thought it would be hell to be married to a woman who never smiled.
Not so bad? Marian thought it would be torture to be married to a man who did not know the meaning of fidelity.
6
You cheated!”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Well, you cheated first.”
“Hah, then you admit you are not so holier-than-thou after all.”
Nicky and Pete almost came to blows. The winds of their anger blew so strongly across the Spanish plains, in fact, that the war had to be postponed.
Nicodemus shook his fist. “You said no interference, and now you send in a general to order my sinner to reform. Speak of deus ex machina, that is Machiavellian.”
“And how is the prince?”
“That is irrelevant. You cheated, so you forfeit the bet. Hardesty is mine. He can suffer a relapse and be rowing across the River Styx by morning.”
“You speak of interference?” Saint Peter pointed at the gremlin dog and said, “Woof.”
The devil had the grace to look embarrassed. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”
“How could I not, when the creature smells of brimstone, no matter how many baths they give it? Anyway, you should be happy the general stepped in. Your man was about to grovel to the woman for the sake of her company. Who knows how they might have gone on in their own time? They were already discovering a mutual respect that could have led to affection. But this way, your unrepentant rake will never be faithful to an unwanted wife, one foisted upon him by the authorities he’s rebelled against his entire life. He’ll go back to his licentious ways and you’ll have his adulterous soul in your hands before you can say Genghis Rabbit.”
“Hmm. You have a point. He’ll take those sacred marriage vows because he must, but he’ll never keep them, not if I know my man. He’d never fall in love with some featherbrained chit who ran off to wed a soldier, then got shoved his way when no one else would have her. So he’ll forsake those holy promises and be back at the gaming hells and bordellos before the ink is dry on his wedding lines. Yes, that might work.”
Saint Peter smiled. “But it won’t work.”
“What, you think he will stay true to that freakish, frumpish, frigid female, after he has known the pleasures of the flesh with the highest flyers in England?” Old Nick saw the opportunity for another wager, an easier win this time.
“I think he might not have a choice. It won’t work.”
“It? You mean it won’t work?” the devil roared, and started two brushfires with the lightning. “You made him a eunuch just to win the bet?”
Saint Peter shook his snowy head. “I was not the one who had his mount fall dead on top of him.”
Satan picked sulfur out of his teeth. “I simply wished to end the man’s suffering more quickly.”
“Angel feathers. You never had a charitable thought in your life. You just wanted to claim his soul that much sooner.”
“I was busy. There was a war on, you know.”
“Well, it might be a temporary condition.”
“It had better be, or all bets are off. I mean, what’s the point of putting your money on a horse that died last week?”
“If I collected the soul of every man whose imagination lusted for a woman not his wife, you would not have enough residents in heaven to hold a cricket match. Hardesty was—and would be, without your piss-pious interference—a true sinner, not just a dreamer. I want him.”
Saint Peter smiled that all-knowing grin that Nick hated. “We’ll just have to see what he wants, won’t we?”
“He sure as Hades won’t want to be singing soprano!” As soon as the Guardian of the Gates left, the Patron of Purgatory turned on the dog, who was cowering behind a bush, as if that could keep him from his master’s wrath. “You! This is all your fault. If you weren’t so busy licking your privates”—the new dog had learned an old trick—“this would never have happened. Well, he might get married, and he might be hors de combat, so to speak, but neither one will last, not with that lusty young buck. Your job will be to make sure that temptation lands at the sinner’s doorstep.”
So Impy dug up a bone and started to carry it to Lord Hardesty’s room.
“Not something to tempt a dog, you flea-witted fool. Something to tempt a man into adultery! Find him a woman, I say, a sexy, seductive siren that no rake can resist. You know the kind. We have plenty of them below. Low necklines, wavy hair, painted faces. A female who will get his attention.”
So Impy tore up Lady Marian’s shapeless black gowns.
*
The wedding was held within the week. Somehow the general had produced a special license, an army chaplain, and a bouquet of flowers.
Marian clutched his arm in one hand and the bouquet in the other as he escorted her to the convent’s tiny stone-walled chapel where the sisters of Saint Esperanza were joyfully gathered. If the nuns were happier that their two troublesome guests were leaving than that the wedding was taking place, their smiles did not reveal such sentiments.
Marian was wearing one of her own gowns, a lemony yellow silk with a white lace overskirt. It showed more of her bare flesh than she had seen since leaving England. She would have used lace from the ruffle at the hem to fill in the narrow bodice, considering she was going to a holy ritual, not a rout or reception, but Sister Marta took it to fashion a matching mantilla for her hair. Marian’s long blond locks were loose beneath the head covering, trailing down her back in soft golden waves, like a bride from antiquity proclaiming her maidenly state. Marian would not have chosen such a hairstyle for her wedding day—she would not have chosen the gown, the guests, or the groom, either—but she had not been able to find her hairpins or ribbons, and hated to ask the sisters for anything so frivolous. They had been so kind to her, even producing a tiny pot of rouge from one of the village girls so she did not look as white as the chapel’s plaster statues. Besides, the general was already waiting impatiently, a war to get back to, so Marian did the best she could with two ivory combs to keep the curls off her face.
Now if only she could keep from trembling. The general must have sensed her unease, for he patted her hand in comfort. “There now, my dear, do not fret. You have made the right decision.”
They both knew she had had no choice, that all the decisions had been made for her. Marian could not keep on wishing it were otherwise, for that would be a waste of her time. Besides, if her wishes had come true, she would have been wedding a lying, cheating, conniving womanizer like Captain Sondebeck. What she had to wish for now was that the womanizing Lord Hardesty was not as unscrupulous.
At least he was not cozying up to her for her money, which her father had claimed was the officer’s motive. Nor was he pressing her for intimacies she was not ready to share with a stranger, which she suspected might have been Sondebeck’s purpose in pursuing her. No, Hardesty was wedding her because he had no choice, either. Why, she half suspected he did even like her. The other half suspected he would forget about her existence as soon as he returned to his own elite, immoral social circles. This was to be a marriage of convenience—his convenience. For Marian it was a chance to go home, but she did not think being the center of more gossip was convenient at all. She had suffered enough humiliation over a supposed betrothed. She could not imagine the mortification of reading of one’s own husband’s affairs in the newspapers every morning. Worse, she would be expected to ignore such fraying of the marriage bonds and lead a complacent, uncomplaining life. She could not do it. She would complain and kick and scream and shout and make Hardesty’s life a misery, the same inconvenient misery that hers would be.
Marian pulled the general to a halt. She could not go through with this travesty, this sacrifice of two lives to satisfy someone’s notion of propriety or dynasty building. Surely there had to be another way to get both of them back to England without being bound to each other for all eternity.
The general had handled hundreds of raw recruits on the eve of battle. He was not going to let one miss’s megrims stymie his best maneuvers. “Wedding jitters, my dear. All brides suffer them, I am told. It will all be over in a trice, and then you need never do it again, eh? You’ll have a handsome, wealthy husband of your own, and infants someday. What more could a girl ask?” He dragged her slowly, inexorably forward into the fray.
Hoping for a last-minute reprieve, Marian asked if it were legal, this English wedding in a Spanish chapel.
“All right and tight, I swear,” he said, patting his pocket where the special license reposed. “Once you make your vows and sign your name, you are wed for all time. I suppose there are annulments and other havey-cavey legal goings-on that could dissolve the contract, but you’d have to prove Hardesty was insane or impotent, you know. Not likely, with half the females in London claiming otherwise, eh?”
Marian stumbled.
“Pardon, shouldn’t have spoken of his prowess, what? Just an old army man, don’t you know. Anyway, no one will be able to question the validity of the ceremony or the legitimacy of your sons. Important for the heir to a dukedom, don’t you know. Else every fifth cousin would be crawling out of the woodwork to claim the title, should the marquess happen to die early. No, you and your future children are protected. Why, I even had my own man of business draw up settlement papers for you in case the young hothead you are wedding does something else rash. You’ll be a wealthy widow, although I pray not soon, eh? So you’ll never have to be selling off your mama’s jewels or living in a convent again. That ought to please you, what?”
Nothing short of the earth opening up to swallow her was going to please Marian. “I…I…”
“No, my dear, you don’t have to thank me. Just be happy. You will be, I know it. It’s a fine man you are getting, brave and loyal. If Hardesty is a bit rough around the edges, why, that’s nothing a good woman cannot smooth over. All will be well. You’ll see.”
What Marian saw was her groom. Hardesty had to be the handsomest man she had ever encountered, despite the raw scar that trailed down his temple to just above his eye. He was leaning on a cane and on Kirby, but he was dressed in formal attire, the first time she had seen him in anything but a nightshirt. He looked like a fashion plate, except for the scar and the sling and the unsteadiness of his balance. An elegantly tailored jacket was draped over one shoulder, but she well knew the muscles that were hidden there. His auburn hair was gleaming in the thin light through the tiny windows of the chapel, and his immaculate white neckcloth was tied in a knot that the Bath gentlemen would have envied. And he was smiling at something Kirby was saying.
Ah, that smile. Marian was half surprised none of the sisters of Saint Esperanza were swooning. She knew she felt her own senses go numb at the sight. He was always attractive; smiling, he was a god. Or a devil, come to seduce every woman in sight into indiscretion. He was a good-looking libertine, a handsome here-and-thereian, a man she could never, ever trust. And he was her bridegroom.
Heaven help her.
7
Hell, Hugh swore to himself, if the woman did not get here soon, he was going to miss his own wedding. His legs were water
y, his head was light, his pulse was racing—and that was before he’d started out for the chapel. He was weaker than he’d thought, or a lot more lily-livered. He’d faced that entire French charge without a second thought. Now he was having second thoughts, and third and fourth ones too, every one of which involved fleeing, if his legs could carry him, and if he had somewhere to go. They couldn’t, he didn’t, so he might as well pass out instead.
Lud, he had never been a coward before. Of course, he’d never been married before either, but surely he could face a vicar and a dowdy female. So what if the vicar was issuing a life sentence, and the woman was to be his jailer? So what if his bride was bony, unbending, and unbiddable? He was a man, wasn’t he? He could survive. Or he could collapse in a heap and beg for a quick death.
He could not turn craven. Lady Marian had suffered more than her share of ignominy, and another failed bridegroom meant yet another scandal. Hugh doubted even that pig Lord Fredricks would have her after that. Hugh would be consigning the unfortunate woman to the life of a pauper, an outcast, a social pariah. He could not do that, not when he owed her for saving his life.
Instead he would force her into a life of luxury among the quality, a life she deserved, but one she did not want, simply because he was sharing it.
And where the devil was she, anyway? If he could get here, half crawling across the convent’s courtyard, the least she could do was be on time.
He took out his watch again, and Kirby snickered. Now Hugh regretted asking the batman to stand up with him, although the sisters’ handyman, Juan Marcos, had been his only other choice. Kirby was not precisely standing up with him anyway. The sergeant was more like propping Hugh up than acting as witness. From the iron grip Kirby had on Hugh’s arm, he must be on orders to prevent desertions.
Autumn Glory and Other Stories Page 16