A Regency Charade (28 page)

“With
Priss
?” Gar rose in outrage. “I never
heard
anything so damnably scurrilous! Alec would
never
give credence to a story like that, would you, Alec?”

Alec, having put on his other boot, got up from the cot. With his eyes blazing, he looked deliberately at each one of the three other men in the room. “So …
these
are the three best friends I have in the world!” he said, a muscle in his tight jaw working angrily. “And all of you quick to impugn my judgment on a matter closer to me than any other and on which I’ve spent more than six years of anguished consideration.
Each
of you—on the basis of an acquaintance with my wife of so brief a time that you should have hesitated to recommend her as a
governess
if that had been asked of you!—has seen fit to put your judgment above mine. What do you really
know
of the matter,
any
of you? Do you have any awareness of the way in which the intimacy of marriage makes a man vulnerable? Do you have any idea of what it means to think of oneself as a
cuckold
? Yes, Ferdie, you may well wince. In life, you know, the word is far more humiliating than it is in a Covent Garden farce. I don’t much relish the label, I can assure you, nor do I relish having to avenge my ‘honor’ by dealing with Edmonds. But you, my friends, have made it easier for me now. I see I am not the
only
cuckold! I can’t blame Gar too much for permitting my wife to pull the wool over
his
eyes—he’s so preoccupied with books, he’s had even less experience with women than
I
had when I married. But
you
, Ferdie! You’re past thirty, and the whole
world
is aware of the extent of your expertise! And
you
, Kellam, with your dozens of straw-hats—certainly
you
should have known better. Yet my sweet, good little wife has cozened all of you.” He gave a sneering laugh, picked up his riding crop and strode to the door, unimpeded by the others who were staring at him aghast. “We’re all cuckolds,
all four of us
. You ought to be thankful that it’s only
I
who must wear the label!”

He knew just where he had to go. Priss had not denied it, and Smoot had confirmed it. The assignations had been held at Three Oaks. He could not believe that they had met
inside
the house, for he doubted that Lady Vickers would have sanctioned her daughter’s transgression. Lady Vickers had been as easily duped by her daughter as all the others, he was certain of that. So Priss and Edmonds could not hold their meetings at the house. Somewhere in one of the numerous outbuildings … or even the stables, he surmised. Those were the sorts of places suitable for such … activities.

He decided against taking his horse. So short a distance—he could walk over in less than ten minutes, especially if he took the short cut through the woods …

He came out of the wood into the clearing behind the main house at Three Oaks and strode across the field. Since the death of her husband, Lady Vickers had not been able to afford to keep up all the grounds around the house, and this field was one that had been returned to nature’s own care. The grasses, now brown and dry, were as tall as his waist, and, waving in the November wind, they took on a motion like that of the swells of the ocean. As he made his way through, he felt a bit as if he were swimming through a choppy sea. He ignored the sharpness of the wind, but when it ruffled his hair he realized that he’d forgotten his hat. Well, he wouldn’t need it. There were no rules of dress nor special etiquette required for a horsewhipping, as far as he knew.

Suddenly his pulse began to throb in his temples. There, across the field, he saw a man leaving the stable. The fellow’s coat was not blue—it looked quite black from this distance—but the identity of the man was unmistakable. He’d been foolish to expect to see a blue coat anyway—a Corinthian of Edmonds’ stripe would never wear the same coat twice in one week!

He quickened his pace and caught up with Edmonds just as he was about to turn the corner of the main house and make his way round to the front. “Damn you, Edmonds,” he muttered, grasping the fellow’s coat collar roughly, “I have you
now
!” And he pulled the man around and raised his whip.

“Captain
T-Tyrrell! What
—?” the man stammered in surprise.

Alec staggered backward, completely confounded. “
Hornbeck
!” he gasped.

It was indeed Mr. Hornbeck who stood before him. The older man was looking at Alec with an expression of puzzled embarrassment while he rubbed at his bruised neck with one hand and clutched a small but artful bouquet of flowers to his breast with the other. “I didn’t expect … I didn’t realize ye’d have so strong an objection, Captain,” he mumbled awkwardly.

“Objection?” Alec echoed, feeling as if he’d stumbled into some sort of incoherent dream.

“To the weddin’. That
is
what’s troublin’ you, isn’t it?”

“No … I don’t know what you’re
talking
about. I’m sorry I handled you so … unkindly, sir. I thought you were someone else.”

Hornbeck blinked. “Then ye
didn’t
know about the weddin’?” He made a grimace of self-disgust. “Dash it all! I’ve given it away!”

Alec’s eyebrows drew together in his attempt to make sense of a most confusing state of affairs. “You haven’t given
anything
away, sir. I can’t make head or tail of this. Are you here to attend a
wedding
!”

“Well,” Hornbeck grinned sheepishly, “ye might say that.”

“But are you sure you’ve come to the right place. This is Three Oaks, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve come to the right place,” Hornbeck assured him with a chuckle. “Been comin’ here every afternoon fer almost three weeks. Been lodgin’ at Wirksworth and comin’ out here each day. I ought to know my way by now.”

Alec’s head was swimming. “Every afternoon for
three weeks
? Do you mean
you’ve
been coming to see Priss?”

“Well, she’s been here, of course … as a chaperon, ye might say. But it’s Lady Vickers I’ve been visi—”

“Isaiah?” came a voice from round the corner. “Is that you?” Priss came running into view with an eager smile, but she stopped short at the sight of Alec. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed, her smile fading. “What are
you
doing here? Who
told
you?”

“Nobody has told me
anything
!” Alec muttered, putting a hand to his bemused head. “I only know that Mr. Hornbeck says he’s to be a guest at a
wedding
—”

“Not a guest, my boy. The
groom
!” Hornbeck chuckled. “I hope it won’t upset ye too much—I’m goin’ to be yer
father-in-law
!”

While Alec gaped and looked from one to the other speechlessly, Priss took Mr. Hornbeck’s arm. “There won’t
be
any wedding if we don’t hurry, Isaiah. The vicar has been waiting this past hour! What’s kept you?”

“Well, first, I didn’t like the nosegay they made up fer me, and I had ’em do it over. Then I’d ridden more than half way here before I realized I’d forgotten the special license. And
then
I was accosted by yer wild husband, here, who looked for all the world as if he was goin’ to
horsewhip
me. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell ye.”

Priss shook her head. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on, Alec, but now that you’re here, you may as well come in for the ceremony. Mama will enjoy having you, I think.”

Alec’s head was whirling. “Your mother is marrying Mr.
Hornbeck? Today
? But why didn’t she
tell
us?”

“I told her she was being silly, but she insisted on keeping it secret until the knot was tied. She wished to avoid any comments on … on …”

“On the impropriety of weddin’ a fellow in trade,” Mr. Hornbeck finished cheerfully. “I don’t blame her fer it. I’ve told her time and again that she’s stoopin’ too low.”

“Nonsense, Isaiah. I’ve never
seen
Mama so happy. But come along, both of you, or the vicar will have an attack of apoplexy.”

Alec stood beside his wife in the sunny drawing room of Three Oaks and listened to the vicar read the marriage vows. But his mind was wrestling with far different matters. He had to reconstruct his entire view of his wife. He glanced surreptitiously at the face of the girl beside him. The dappled November sunlight lit her hair and face as she watched in rapt joy the proceedings before her. There was nothing devious in Priss’s clear eyes, nothing sly in the curve of her smiling mouth. His friends had been completely right … and he was the very worst kind of a fool! There had been no assignations, no liaisons. She had spent her afternoons
chaperoning Hornbeck’s courtship of her mother
, that was all! If Blake Edmonds was dallying with a local temptress, she was
not
his wife. The truth was as blindingly clear and as brightly warming as the sunlight on her hair.

As if she felt his eyes on her, Priss turned her head and looked up at him. Whatever she saw in his eyes made her catch her breath and blush. She quickly looked away, but after a moment, he felt her fingers touch his hand. He grasped them tightly and held on for the duration of the ceremony.

After the words were said and the license signed, Mr. Hornbeck kissed his lady with touching affection. Priss, with the help of the butler, passed out the glasses of sherry to the wedding party of five and to the half-dozen servants who stood in the room beaming. Then the entire group went out to the front steps where Mr. Hornbeck’s shiny new carriage had been brought and now stood waiting. While Mrs. Hornbeck’s bags were loaded aboard (the wedding trip was to start with a fortnight at Bath, to be followed by a trip to Birmingham so that Mrs. Hornbeck might inspect the source of her new riches—her husband’s rapidly expanding cotton mill), Alec took the opportunity to shake his father-in-law’s hand and offer him the most sincere good wishes. Priss, in the meantime, gave her mother a tearfully joyful embrace. “You
will
be happy, I know!” she whispered.

Her mother held her off and looked at her keenly. “And
so
, my dear,” she said with a wide smile, “will
you.
”

Chapter Twenty-one

Alec suggested that they walk back to Braeburn along the road rather than through the woods. He had so much to say to her that he wanted to take the long way round. For a while they walked silently along. The only sounds were the soughing of the wind in the trees and the rustle and crunch of the fallen leaves that covered the road. “Priss, I … I’ve been unforgivably wrong, and I don’t know how to apologize,” he said at last. “I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” she said, keeping her eyes on the leaves she was kicking up with each step.

“I was the greatest fool. Everybody tried to tell me so—your mother, Gar, Kellam … even Ferdie. I’ve been so
stupid
!”

“Yes, you have.”

“I suppose I’ve been wrong as well about … about all those things I said to you in London … about
everything
!”

She looked up at him levelly. “I had not seen nor spoken to Blake Edmonds from that day you left six years ago until Saturday’s ball,” she said.

He stopped walking and stared at her for a moment, his brow furrowed in an agony of indecision. Abruptly, he grasped her arms and made her face him. “Priss, it’s all such a muddle! If only you’d told me at
first
that you loved Edmonds … I would have tried to understand. We could have worked things out somehow …”

“Hang it, Alec,” she cried in disgust, flinging his hands from her arms, “don’t you ever
listen
? I’ve been trying for six years to make you understand! I did
not
love Blake when I married you. I had a girlish infatuation for him long before. It lasted three weeks.
Three weeks
! My only mistake was that I didn’t have the courage to tell him
then and there
that I no longer cared for him. I don’t care whether your obsessed brain will permit you to believe me or not, but in either case, I don’t
ever
want to hear
another word
about Blake Edmonds! Do you hear me, Alec? Not ever again!” And she turned and walked rapidly down the road away from him.

“Priss,
wait
!” He sped down the road after her, but the leaves clung to the bottoms of his boots, and he’d not gone a dozen steps before his feet slipped from under him, and he crashed down on the ground.

Priss heard the fall and flew to his side. “Alec!” she cried in alarm, kneeling down beside him.

He sat up and grinned diffidently up at her. “I’m all right. You needn’t look so stricken.” The familiar words stirred both their memories. He reached up and pulled her down beside him on the bed of leaves. “Oh, God, Priss,” he whispered, bending over her, “I
do
love you so!”

They were quite dizzy when at last they got up again to make their way home. The sun was setting, and the wind had grown chill, but they walked unheeding through the darkening shadows. “I don’t deserve that you should be so forgiving,” he said quietly, putting an arm about her waist.

“That’s true,” she said with happy complacency. “But you were obsessed. It’s like an illness, you know. You couldn’t help it. Fortunately, you still possess a loving and faithful wife to make you well again.” She giggled as she slipped her arm around him. “I never would have believed, yesterday, that I could feel again as young and happy as I did the day before you went away. It’s almost as if none of the last six years had even happened.”

“But they did happen.” He sighed, a long, drawn-out expulsion of breath. “Do you remember the other night, when I found you crying on the terrace? You said it was for the summer that was gone. Well, I’ve made us lose six years … the … the summer of our marriage.”

But she was too full of joy to be daunted. “I wasn’t really crying for the summer, you know. It was for
you.
” She bent down and scooped up a handful of brightly colored leaves and tossed them whirling into the wind above them. As they floated down like festive confetti, she turned a glowing face to him. “See what I’ve discovered, my love? The other seasons have their beauty too.”