An Independent Miss

by Becca St. John

  “You’re quite right, Mama.”

  Felicity scrambled to her feet, so obviously unaware he’d been there, in plain sight. No doubt she imagined coming and going without his knowledge, as she must have done in the past, his servants complicit in those trespasses.

  He dared not look directly at her, but that did not mean he missed a thing. He was here and she would deal with the consequences. They all would, even his mother with her hard-earned normalcy. A small matter, perhaps, next to what Felicity endured this past night, but that didn’t lessen his mother’s hard-won efforts.

  Once again, Felicity forced his hand with impetuous actions. No turning back with her coming here, any more than when she’d gone to his room at Ansley Park.

  Worse, he doubted he’d change the result. Damn him for that weakness. She would never truly be his, yet he reeked of caring for her, wanting her, regardless of common sense.

  Felicity was not a practical bride choice.

  “She is all done,” he continued, looking at his betrothed for the first time, though he’d been aware of her movements from the moment she woke.

  He’d have been better to cling to his anger, not to look, not to see the deep shadows under eyes, lined with red. She watched, wary, and he knew she would defend herself even as she expected total censure. She’d not shrink back despite the tremble of her lips, or hands gripped so tight he feared she staved off circulation.

  All from a young lady who could face the worst of illness.

  He’d reduced her to this. His heart shifted, emotion welling past fierce opposition. He did not want this unrequited love, had every right to be furious.

  He looked at her, pictured her stoic calm, as tormented screams clawed away peace. Sounds not easily loosed from a mind. Fodder for nightmares no woman, no man, should bear.

  And she bore it with fortitude, even knowing what she did would be of no avail. No cure for the men who suffered so.

  Yet still she fought.

  The measure of her character. Her loyalty. Her steadfastness.

  Calm and soothing in the midst of hell. Wasn’t that why he proposed?

  “Your Mrs. Comfrey,” he explained to his mother, “spent the night attending desperately ill soldiers.” He shifted, met his mother’s clear gaze, risked sending her back into her fog, as surely as Felicity’s complicity threatened her. “Gruesome sickness fierce as the ones we faced.” He swallowed, looked to the ceiling, memories far too vivid haunting him even when awake.

  He pinched his nose, turned. Dawn’s chorus, a sweet cacophony of bird song, flowed through the open window. Beyond the promise of a new day. Promise. He sighed, knowing she forced his hand, even if unwittingly. “You would have been proud, Mother. She did not waiver, or leave, which is why she did not attend you when you expected, for I assume, you did expect her last night.”

  He looked back at his mother, watchful for distress. Not happy memories, but honest memories that must be acknowledged. If she could not do this now, when better, she might not ever be truly well.

  Sorrow lined her face, but not agitation. She smiled at him, a soft sharing of their history. “The pain will always be there—” tears filled her eyes, “—but so will life and laughter and love. They would not want us to live, forever, in the grief.”

  “You are much better, Mama.” But she didn’t look at him, she looked at Felicity, the two women sharing an understanding.

  “My lord,” Felicity said, only to be cut off by his mother, stunning them both by saying, “Do sit down, Lady Felicity,” as she patted the bedside. “Don’t let Andover’s fierce expression alarm you. You will get used to it in time.”

  “Lady Felicity?” The lady in question squeaked and sank back down on the chair, her hands stretched across the counterpane, touching his mother’s hands.

  Like mother and daughter.

  Andover couldn’t move. An imp of a devil danced in his mother’s eyes. Felicity fixed her gaze on the tap, tap, tap of his crop against the side of his leg. He spun away, heart beating a rapid tattoo as he catalogued changes.

  From sallow and mottled, his mother’s cheeks hinted at pink, her smile known to brighten hearts, returned.

  Because of Felicity?

  Good lord, behavior beyond the pale should not deserve applause.

  She worked a miracle.

  By acting against all he believed. Ignoring all that made him comfortable. She trespassed Montfort Abbey! For that was precisely where his mother first mentioned Mrs. Comfrey.

  Servants would have played a role, against his strict orders.

  She undermined him in his own home before she was even introduced to it.

  She would never give him peace. All he wanted was a quiet, serene life. Peace, for God’s sake, understandable routine, like going for a morning ride without being stunned into a scene such as this. Peace.

  “What did you say, dear?” his mother asked.

  He spun back. “Peace,” he near shouted. “That’s what I sought in a wife, peace and calm and stability. Someone to soothe you.

  “Instead I chose the only lady in the whole of London who would sneak into the home of her betrothed, in the middle of the night, to attend his mother. Who would dress as a servant and climb trees into gardens locked against her. Who would treat a man with maggots! Maggots!” He shuddered. “And what has become of me?” He paced now. “I have become a man who wouldn’t choose any other lady, if I had that choice, which I don’t, because she stole it from me.”

  He stopped, staring at the floor, seeing all the wild events that led to this moment.

  “You made me care!” he railed at her, confusion roiling over him. “I don’t want to care about you!” He stormed about the room, ignoring Felicity sinking back into her seat. “I can’t afford to care, but here you are, making me feel again, putting a…” he gestured toward his mother, “…a sparkle in my mother’s eye! And you are an herbalist! You treat people with potions, and yet I would have no other, even if given the choice.”

  “Which you have not been given,” his mother finished for him. “Though you had been given that choice before you asked for her hand.”

  So sensible. When only a month before, his mother lived far, far away, in a very different world.

  Good lord, he was going to cry. He looked away, toward the window, over the tops of trees, to a horizon not long touched by the sun.

  “Andover,” Felicity started to say, but he spun back, lifted his hand. “Let us not go there just yet,” he said. “For I would like to know how Mama knew who you really were.” He sent a baleful look at his elfin mother, calmed by direction, focus.

  She sat back in her bed, beaming. “You were to be married. It was my place to learn of your bride-to-be’s character.”

  “Did you really?” Felicity asked, with a hint of admiration.

  “Well, of course I did! Just as your father would have looked into Andover’s affairs, it was my responsibility to look into what sort of woman my son wanted to marry.” Affection for Felicity, so obvious in her easy comfort, the reach to cover her hand before turning back, the same warmth in her eyes, to pat the other side of her bed. “Come, son, stop playing at that fool Byron and sit down.”

  “Byron?” He snorted. “The second time someone compared us. Awful, the man has no self-discipline.”

  “Which is why he leans toward his own drama.”

  “Enough of that.” Andover sat. “How did you do it?” he asked, as he followed her orders. “How did you look into Felicity’s character when you haven’t been taking visitors?”

  “There have been a few visitors,” she admitted. “Besides Mrs. Comfrey. But, then, that is not where the best information comes from.”

  There was a scratch at the door and a maid entered, bearing the tray of coffee and hot chocolate.

  Felicity jumped up, still in the gown she’d worn to the ball, heavy straight tendrils of hair falling loose from the stylish arrangement her abigail would have worked hard at creating.<
br />
  Difficult hair, Lady Jane had jeered. Not difficult by a man’s standards, quite the opposite. Thick and luscious, with a will of its own. He couldn’t quite take his eyes off it, off her, as she set the bed tray over his mother’s lap. A daughterly gesture. Their mutual fondness shutting him out.

  Exactly why he wanted a wife. He scowled

  “Servants.” Lady Andover startled him.

  “What about servants?” Andover asked.

  “Lord Westhaven would have asked financial men about your state of affairs, but a woman, well, she runs the household, so you must find out what the servants think of her.”

  “And some of ours are connected to some of yours, aren’t they?” Felicity leaned back, smiling.

  “Yes, though that wouldn’t matter. News travels faster down that grapevine than ours, I can assure you.”

  “And what did you find out?” Andover asked, watching Felicity who would not meet his eyes.

  “The servants adore Lady Felicity, and so they should. Not a one suffers any malady. She tends to them all. Though she is known to be…how should I phrase this…”

  “Outrageous, outlandish, a true hoyden?” Andover offered, receiving a slap of his hand for his efforts.

  “He’s right, you know,” Felicity defended him. “I’ll never be a paragon.”

  “Pshaw!” Lady Andover exclaimed. “Overrated virtues! It’s not society you have to be true to, it’s each other. Can you do that?”

  “I’d forgotten how dictatorial you could be,” he complained, rewarded with his mother’s laugh.

  “You boys could be stubborn beyond reason,” she informed him, referring to his brother without losing her smile.

  “I was always the worst,” Andover admitted, looking to Felicity.

  “Yes,” his mother agreed. “You like things a certain way.”

  “He’s not getting his way in this,” Felicity acknowledged. “Everything’s wrong, not at all what he sought.”

  Lady Andover settled back against her pillows. “Perhaps we receive what we need, not what we think we need.”

  Too true, but with all his complaints, all his stubborn stands, he might need a lifetime to convince her. Sifted words to find a way to start, but the crunch of a carriage slowing down outside, drew him to the window.

  “Your parents are here, and…” he looked back at Felicity, “…if I’m not mistaken, your abigail.

  He loved the way she stood, unconsciously at ease in herself, not fretting at the loose strands of hair, the wrinkles in her gown.

  “Such a fuss,” she teased his mother, “just to fetch me home.” And laughed. Only it didn’t last when his mama shook her head. She looked to him then, and he, too, shook his head.

  “This is your home now, Felicity.” He allowed the thrill of it to course through him before he continued. “The vicar will be waiting.”

  “Oh, no…” She backed up, her legs hitting the chair seat, forcing her to sit. “This is what you meant by my forcing your hand.”

  “Yes, I’ve told you that and I will be grumpy about it, no doubt. I don’t like someone making decisions for me.”

  She rose again, stepped around the seat. “Then I shan’t do it. I have to be willing.”

  “I said I would be grumpy. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I did not say I would be sorry.” He didn’t move around the bed, afraid if he got close enough to hold her, he would.

  Not that his mother would mind. So near to her old self, she would crow with delight. Only, there was no time. Not if she was to be dressed in her morning wedding finest.

  “The special license allows us to be married in the evening.” He sulked. “But now we will be a plain old conventional couple, getting married in the morning.” His exaggerated sigh covered a smile.

  They would be married this morning, his mother improved with each day, there would be life in his home once more. “My life will never be the same.” He shook his head woefully.

  “I should hope not!” His mother swatted his arm. “And out of here, both of you, I’ve packing to do!”

  CHAPTER 23 ~ WHAT OF LADY COMFREY?

  They married in the Earl of Andover’s chapel. All parents present, Lord Upton, Bea, and her parents, as well as the Marshalls.

  In the wee hours, Lady Westhaven arrived with Felicity’s wedding dress and part of the trousseau. “Thank goodness one of the seamstresses is the same size as you.” Lady Westhaven explained. “She’s been standing in while you’ve been off gallivanting about, missing appointments.”

  “Oh, where is Felicity?” Bea beamed, rushing into the vestibule on Upton’s arm, her parents following more sedately. “This is so exciting!”

  Andover stood quietly at the altar as his mother pinned a rosebud on the lapel of his coat.

  “I like your Lady Comfrey,” she whispered.

  “No need to whisper, Mother. I’ve always told you there is no such woman as Mrs. Comfrey.”

  “There is. I’ve seen the name on the labels of the bottles.”

  “There isn’t anymore.” He rocked back on his heels. “She is about to become Lady Andover.”

  “You will not stop her from being who she is.”

  He stopped rocking. “No, Mother. I don’t think that would be possible, or fair.”

  “I never should have let you spend so much time with my mother, but I was so lost when your little brother passed.”

  “Grand mama had her ways.”

  “She was a bitter woman. Hard. I should have kept her away from you.”

  “She wanted to protect me.”

  Lady Andover huffed. “She wanted you tied to her.”

  “No harm was done.”

  “It almost was.” She wrung her hands, still easily agitated. “Imagine, poor Lady Felicity having to pretend she was Lady Comfrey.”

  He looked down at his mother. “How long before you figured it out?”

  She smiled. “That book, on the table when we went around to visit. And, as I told you, servants’ gossip. They believe we will have the best herbalist in all of England living in our home.” She patted his arm. “Rather gives an old woman a new lease on life.”

  Fear slayed happiness. “What do you mean by that?”

  She cupped his cheek, her warmth warming him. “The way you described Lady Felicity in your letters, I thought you had found the sort of bride to tolerate a mother-in-law, no more. A horrid existence, even living in the dowager house. I imagined no access to my grandchildren. The medication, I suppose, painting vivid pictures. Mrs. Comfrey—” startled, she laughed, “—your Mrs. Comfrey had a long talk with me when I cried over my fears. It seems she knew what she spoke about.” Lady Andover tutted. “Imagine me complaining to her about such things. How she drew that out of me, I haven’t the foggiest, but she knew, she suspected the temptation of oblivion.”

  “You wouldn’t, Mother.”

  Seriously, she patted his hand. “Oblivion with the tonic, living in that awful stupor. I doubt your bride would allow any backsliding there.”

  “Don’t frighten me like that, Mother.”

  “No,” she promised, as she had promised Mrs. Comfrey, never to do anything drastic without, at the least, admitting to the idea. “I have made my vows to your young lady. Besides, I have no doubt your children will intrigue. Bound to with parents like you. I do not want to miss that.”

  “Lady Andover,” Upton joined them. “You look well.”

  “Yes, Lord Upton, just in time for this festive occasion.”

  Bea ran in from the vestry. “Take your place, Lord Andover! Cis…I mean, Lady Felicity…is coming out!”

  Despite the hurried pulling-together of the event, it proved memorable and beautiful. The vicar, Andover’s friend, and his wife were gracious, considering they, too, had been roused in the darkest hours of the morning. Upton and Bea stood as witnesses.

  Awed, the gathered guests watched a dim day turn to a mosaic of colors as the sun came out, strained through a window telling a sto
ry of redemption in colored glass. A story of blessing, with a ten-foot-tall angel. In increments, the light shifted until, at the moment of ‘I dos,’ beams of richly hued illumination haloed the couple. Dust motes, like little faeries, dancing in its stream.

  Everyone cried, tears of happiness and relief.

  Andover nearly dropped the ring he had been fiddling with in the carriage. “It was your grandmother’s,” he whispered, as he prepared to put it on her finger. “Your mother gave it to me when I arrived in London. She said it would mean much to you, that you were close.”

  Felicity nodded, unable to speak as he repeated the vicar’s words, “I take thee, Felicity…

  Her grandmother’s ring. A gentlewoman with a backbone of steel. It was fortuitous that something of hers would be with Felicity in her marriage.

  They arrived at Andover’s town home without fanfare. His butler was there to let them in, but no other servants were about.

  Married. Husband. New terms in life.

  He led her up two levels of the grand staircase, before turning away from the path she knew, toward a double set of doors that opened to a sitting room. In the center stood an intimate table set for two. On the side, a wheeled trolley with chafing dishes and carafes. To the left, a set of doors revealed his bedchamber, and auxiliary rooms. To the right, the marchioness’ rooms.

  Lady Felicity no longer, but Lady Andover, Marchioness.

  “Odd,” she hesitated, toying with a fork on the table, glancing toward her rooms, though she didn’t take a step toward them. “I hadn’t thought of being a marchioness.”

  “Let’s have a bite to eat, then we can rest.”

  Her hand trembled as she brushed an imagined lock of hair from her forehead.

  “You must be famished.” She’d certainly missed supper at the ball. He doubted anyone thought of food after he left her.

  “I’m not certain I can eat.”

  “Trust me, Felicity. You will sleep better after a bite to eat.”

  She looked up, a brave young lady, willing to face horror and gore of septic wounds, fragile and shy with a new husband. “You’re probably right.”

  He thought of food nibbled from her skin, wine sipped from fleshy dips but she was so skittish he didn’t dare play, but served her as gallantly as possible. He didn’t ask about her work or tell her of his fears, though he was afraid. Their path would not be an easy one.