by Regina Darcy
His face burned with the shame of those memories.
“I swear that I will treat you with respect and honour, as befits the Countess of Henton,” he said in formal tones.
“Then I consent.”
Christopher found that he could not quite face his butler yet, but the servants must be informed that there would soon be a lady of the house. He sent a message to Benton to assemble the staff in the kitchen so that he could address them the following day.
He timed his appearance for when they would be finished with the breakfast duties and not yet working toward lunch, which remained a casual business at the manor.
“I wish to announce,” he said when they were all gathered in the kitchen, standing behind the big wooden table where Cook prepared the daily meals and where they ate after serving the Earl, “that I am going to be married very soon. The wedding will be a very small and private matter, held here. We do not plan any festivities to mark the occasion, so there will be no extra work on the staff. However, it is likely that there will be more callers, and that will present somewhat of an increase in labour although I am confident that the future Countess will do all in her power to minimize the burden.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, my lord,” said Mrs Truman, “but who are you marrying?”
“I am marrying Miss Connolly.”
“Which Miss Connolly, my lord?” asked Cook.
Of course, how foolish of him. There were two Misses Connolly. “Miss Prudence Connolly,” he said, avoiding Benton’s eyes. “I trust that you will wish the Countess well as she oversees the manor. Mrs Truman, she will rely upon your expertise and knowledge as she acclimates to her new duties. I trust I may count on you to provide her with your excellent guidance.”
“Certainly, my lord. And may I say, on behalf of the staff, that we wish you and Miss Connolly the very best in the future and a long and happy marriage?”
It ought to have been the butler, who was the head of the servants, to have given the best wishes for their marriage. But Benton remained silent and Christopher did not wish to prolong the discomfort of his presence.
Although the wedding was to be a private one, Mrs Truman was determined that the house was to be cleaned from top to bottom in the brief time that she had to accomplish the task and the servants were seen scurrying from room to room, mopping and dusting and outfitting the rooms for their new mistress who, although she was already in residence, would be acquiring a new role after the wedding.
As the wedding day approached, Phoebe, sensitive as always to her sister’s moods, did not pry into the reasons for the hasty marriage. The two sisters, aware that the marriage would subtly change their relationship, spent all their time together. It was not in a celebratory manner that they shared their hours, but rather as two allies who were prepared to face an obstacle together. On the morning of the wedding, Phoebe rose early to pick flowers for her sister to carry. The pale pink roses suited the pastel tones of the dress that Prudence chose to wear. Phoebe dressed her sister’s black hair into a long, loose gathering at the base of her neck and clasped the necklace that had belonged to their mother.
Prudence was so pale and there were faint purple circles under her eyes as evidence that sleep had been elusive in the days since she had agreed to marry the Earl.
Phoebe’s heart felt sore as she observed her sister’s state, but she could not weaken and give way to tears. It did not matter that this was not the wedding she had dreamed of, or that there was plainly no love between bride and groom. As she stood at her sister’s side, Benton the butler stood beside the Earl. There would be no other witnesses and Christopher was grateful that Benton had accepted the assignment.
For it was an assignment. The wedding was solemn but sterile and the clergyman found himself at a loss as he repeated the familiar words of the marriage ceremony to a couple which did not even look at each other. He was accustomed to seeing brides and grooms steal glances at one another and to seem oblivious to the religious aspect of the service, but this couple might as well have been strangers.
He was relieved when the business was over and he could leave.
“Mrs Truman will show you to your new rooms,” Christopher said when they were alone in the library where the wedding had been performed.
Her surprised gaze revealed to him that she had given no thought to the fact that the appearance of a real marriage must be maintained, even if the marriage was counterfeit. “Prudence,” he said, “you cannot sleep in one of the guest bedrooms. You are now the Countess of Henton. You will have your own bedroom and your own dressing room.”
“My own bedroom?”
“Yes,” he replied curtly, chagrined at how specific she was. “The Countess has always occupied her own quarters.”
That the rooms were adjoining was not something he felt he should mention. There were locks on both sides of the door and he was certain that she would not hesitate to bolt hers.
He thought of telling her that it would not be necessary for her to do so. He had already trespassed upon her life. He would not further the affront. The door between their bedrooms would remain closed. It would be, as he had promised, a marriage of convenience, observed only in name.
ELEVEN
There were benefits to being the Countess of Henton, Prudence discovered. She went to the stables and instructed the groom to saddle up her favourite horse and he did so without delay. She was not obliged to tell him where she was going and in fact, she had told no one, not even Phoebe, that she was leaving. She rode to the house of the Duke and Duchess of Summersby, only a few hours after the marriage was undertaken, bringing with her a handful of belongings. She would have to borrow clothing from the Duchess, for she wished no one to find her.
“My dear girl,” the Duchess greeted her. “What a surprise. All of London is talking about your wedding. I did not expect to see you here today. The Duke will be so disappointed; he left earlier this week to attend to business in Bath and has no idea that you and the Earl are married.”
As a strained expression on the Countess of Henton’s face appeared, the Duchess frown.
“Prudence, is anything wrong?” she asked, noticing upon closer examination that Prudence displayed none of the expected joy of a new bride.
“I am here because there is no one else in the city that I can trust and I do not wish to give my sister cause for alarm. She is the Earl’s ward and I do not wish to ruin her chances for a good marriage. Phoebe is very dear to me, dearer than anyone, and she must not suffer because of my errors.”
“Prudence, what are you saying? Come, sit down here, my dear and explain yourself, for so far you are making no sense at all.”
She tugged her on to the setae. “The ton has been busy with wagging tongues discussing your marriage. The view is that the Earl was suddenly smitten and would not have it but that you must be married right away before another suitor has had a chance to capture your heart. Are you saying this is not the case?”
Prudence found that she was able to speak clearly and coherently, without emotion as she explained that her marriage to the Earl was for appearances only, to avoid the complications of a compromising situation. She did not provide details of the situation and the Duchess did not pry, but her expression grew stern as she listened.
“I had hoped that Henton had reformed,” she said. “I knew that he was not suited to be a guardian, but you and Phoebe are such splendid young ladies that I hoped for the best. James told me that the Earl was not as bad as his reputation would have me think, but I was not convinced. So when he seemed attentive to providing you both with an introduction to London that would be complete, I thought that he was turning over a new leaf. I even hoped that he might fall in love with one of you. I should not have been so easily duped.”
“I wish to avoid a scandal,” Prudence said. “We are married and that is the end of that. But it was not a marriage that either of us would have chosen.”
“You may not know this,” the Duchess
began to speak slowly, gathering her thoughts to form them into words, “but the Duke and I did not have what would be regarded as a traditional courtship. He . . . I was on my way to the church to marry a man I thought I loved. The Duke abducted me and took me to his house, where I was kept as a prisoner.”
Seeing Prudence’s expression of disbelief and dismay, the Duchess quickly added, “I was well treated and I was not harmed, but I attempted to escape. I failed and after that, I felt even more like a hostage.”
“But whatever made you fall in love with the man who abducted you?” Prudence asked. How could such a thing be possible?
The Duchess smiled.
“I cannot explain it to you. I can barely understand it myself, except that I fell in love. James is unique,” she said. “He is quite unlike the other gentlemen of the peerage and he doesn’t care in the least that he is so unlike them. He has been the kindest and gentlest and most good-humoured husband that a woman could hope to marry. But that is my story. It is not yours,” she finished briskly. “Let me know what you wish me to do and I will gladly aid you. Do you wish to return to France? I will provide you with the funds for a ticket to travel. Or perhaps you wish to start your life over again. America would be the best place for that, I should think. It would be a very bold undertaking but if that is the direction that you choose, please be assured that I will provide what you need to do so. Whatever your decision, you will not leave as a pauper. James will support me in this, you may be assured.”
“I don’t know what I want to do,” Prudence said. “But I don’t want anyone to know that I am here. Will the Duke be away for long?”
“At least a fortnight,” Georgette said. “He is arranging the purchase of property in Bath and he is meticulous in such matters. I am . . . we are going to welcome a child by the end of the year and James wants us to have a home in Bath where we can go to take the waters. He is convinced that this will be of benefit to my health, although I am not at all ill. But it pleases him to be indulgent and so I have no objection.”
“Then, while he is away, you will not object to maintaining my secret and allowing me to stay here? I know that it is a dreadful imposition, but there is nowhere else that I can go and no one else to whom I can turn.”
“I do not object at all,” the Duchess assured her. “I will have to tell him, upon his return home, that we have a guest whose presence must remain a secret, but he will oblige me in this. The servants, however, are another matter. Servants talk, you know, even the best of them. However . . . the servants know that you have come to call and they will assume that you have left when they do not see you here. It will be a challenge and we shall need to be imaginative in providing for your needs, but you can lodge in one of the back guest rooms which we rarely use. The servants do not go there, it is in the older part of the house and the staircase is steep. It was cleaned when we arrived for the start of the season but I doubt if anyone has been near it since.”
“I am used to fending for myself and I am no stranger to a dust-cloth,” Prudence said. “If it would not be an inconvenience, I should greatly appreciate the sanctuary you offer. I must decide what to do but I cannot make up my mind when I am surrounded by my obligations to my sister, and to the household itself, and to the man who has married me, even though ours is not a marriage. I need time to think and the solitude in which to do this.”
“I understand perfectly,” the Duchess assured her. “As I am expecting a child, I may exhibit any manner of peculiarity and the household will assume it is part of the process of my physical state. So if I should decide that I must have two baths a day and I order hot water brought up to my dressing room at night, it will be accepted as one of my maternal whims. You will be able to wash and dress in private in my dressing room; no one will disturb you in the evening. Then you will be able to return to the upstairs guest room where you will enjoy privacy as you ponder your options. Food will also be easily addressed; the servants are already pressing extra portions on me. They do not officially know that I am expecting, but of course they know. Servants know everything,” she repeated, accepting this as inevitable. “But they cannot know what they do not expect.”
The Duchess was as good as her word and that night, instead of preparing for the night in the bedroom which belonged to the Countess of Henton, Prudence, dressed in a nightgown that belonged to the Duchess, laid down in the small bedroom which was so insignificant in size and location as to be virtually unnoticed by the staff. She felt respite as she lay upon the sheets which still bore a faint scent of camphor from storage in the linen chest. She had not slept in recent days and she hoped that tonight, the weariness that consumed her would find relief in rest.
She fell asleep almost as soon as she doused the candle. But she had not prepared herself for the dreams that would inhabit her slumber. Strange, mismatched dreams that involved the Earl, at some times present beside her at other times absent but not, in the peculiar manner that dreams had. They were dancing at a ball, but there were no other guests except for Lady Delafield, who was very critical of the Earl for failing to receive her when she called. Prudence and the Earl paid her no mind as they danced while Phoebe played a Mozart tune on the piano. In another dream, she and Phoebe were in France again, but this time they were teaching at the school where they had been students because Madame had left for America.
Prudence awoke before dawn, while the skies outside were still a soft shade of dark grey. Rising from her bed, she went to the window to look out upon the landscape. Her bedroom faced a grove of trees; she was safe from observation and as she stood there, she felt the peace of the morning enter within. She still had no answers and had not been able to reach a decision, but she had at least slept.
And, strangely, the presence of the Earl in her dreams had not been disturbing. In fact, she had taken comfort from seeing him. The dreams had been devoid of the tension of the recent days and there had been none of the heightened emotions that had captured her from the moment he had kissed her that night when she and Phoebe arrived from France.
In the dark morning, before London awoke, she stood in front of the window, without plans or even a premise for her actions. But the dearth of plans meant that there was a vacuum in her thoughts and that vacuum was soon filled by memories.
The pressure of the Earl’s demanding lips against hers.
It had not been an unpleasant or oppressive sensation. She thought that she could understand what the Duchess meant when she had described her time as the captive of the Duke as something that had not been as inhibiting as one might expect. For Prudence, those kisses were not at all imprisoning. They had been liberating.
Perhaps the Earl had not been wrong when he told her that all men and women must heed the desires of their bodies if they were to find harmony in their unions. She had not understood what he meant then, but now, married to him and removed from him, she clearly recognised that the physical attraction was not the sin that the Rector had called it.
His touch had made her feel vibrantly alive in a manner that nothing else could resemble. She was a young woman who enjoyed physical activity, but kissing a man was not at all like the vigorous pleasure of horseback riding. And she relished a good long walk across the countryside, but when she had been held in his arms, her own embrace had matched his. That night when she had fallen asleep beside him as he lay on the chaise had been a different kind of intimacy. She had sensed his need for her company although he had been in no condition to express that need. So she had stayed with him until he fell asleep again. But she had fallen asleep as well. It had been entirely innocent; no burning kisses to mark the occasion. And yet, it had felt almost sacred to be there with him.
How strange it all was.
The kisses that she had regarded as sinful transgressions against morality had borne no consequences except to brand the memory upon her very soul. The night they had spent together had been innocent and was yet the cause of their unhappy, necessary marriage. How odd con
ventions were. Was that what the Earl had been trying to explain to her? That life was a compromise between the passions of one’s body and the social etiquette enforced upon one’s character? It seemed very philosophical and she was not at all sure that she was correct. There was nothing philosophical about the soaring delight of a kiss from a man who knew how to excite every bit of pleasure out of a woman and return it. She could only imagine what it would be like, if kisses were this potent, what the actual marriage act itself would be like.
Even though the girls at school were sheltered from the male sex, as well as armed for chastity by the strident sermons of the Rector, they knew from the novels they surreptitiously read and the poetry they devoured that there was a sublime ecstasy yet denied to them, one which should only come with love blessed by marriage. Madame spoke little of romantic love; marriage, she told her students, was a matter of maintaining order in a society which would otherwise be chaotic. But she had not disdained l’amour, although she had not satisfied their curiosity regarding the secrets which were solved after the vows were exchanged. Respect and regard for one another; that, she told the girls, was the essence of a successful marriage.
And kisses which scalded the lips and tantalised the flesh, Prudence thought to herself. Was there no other way to experience this sensation except as the Earl had done, with his licentious ways and his depraved friends and their unleashed sensuality? She would not have known that a kiss could so transform her had the Earl not crossed the boundaries of propriety to bestow them upon her. How had he learned that the body sought liberation from repressive convention? Was it because he was so very liberal in his pleasures, or because he had managed to discern the difference between what society taught and what he knew to be true?
And what had he meant that night when he spoke of her. He had been drunk. But his words . . . had his drunken state freed him to express what he felt for her?