Barbara Metzger (14 page)

“Of course. I am only trying to make the best provision for my dear sister’s only child.” Findley could do nothing but take his seat again. At least he had one. He hadn’t been offered any brandy, tea, or hospitality, not that he expected it in this den of infamy. He’d even had to tend to Nigel’s nosebleed on his own, to his disgust.

Pemberton was going on: “And you can stop looking thunderclouds at me, St. Sevrin. I’ve known you since you were in short coats, and you were a resty lad then. Would have thought the army’d smooth out the rough edges. Guess not. But sit down anyway. There will be no more, ah, accidents like young Findley here suffered, or I’ll charge you with contempt of court. That means three days’ labor. The schoolhouse needs new steps. Don’t suppose you’d be much good at it anyway, so don’t aggravate me with any show of temper.”

St. Sevrin sat down on the threadbare sofa next to Lisanne, sending a cloud of dust into the tea she was pouring for the vicar. She also offered the reverend gentleman on her other side a plate of raspberry tarts. Becka must be full of ham, St. Sevrin decided, for the big dog didn’t even raise her head off Lisanne’s feet when he helped himself to one of the pastries. Good, let the shaggy mongrel stay there so no one could see that his bride was barefoot.

The sofa smelled of mildew, but St. Sevrin also recognized the scent of musty old clothes coming from Lisanne and a whiff of the soap he used. She also had an inchworm climbing out of the ivy tiara she wore. Damn! That wasn’t going to win any points with the magistrate. While Pemberton was greeting the vicar, St. Sevrin reached up and removed the offending wildlife, then had to look around for a place to put it. The sugar bowl seemed the likeliest until Pemberton changed his mind and wanted tea instead of the brandy. Gads, Squire would think they all had breezes in their cocklofts.

Lisanne had frown lines on her forehead he wished he could wipe away, so he tried a smile for her. Lud, what a damnable thing to put a sensitive female through. She looked like a wood nymph that could be blown away on a gentle breeze.

For himself, St. Sevrin wasn’t worried. He was a gambler, after all. Of course this was the biggest gamble of his life—or Lisanne’s. Usually when he wagered, Sloane knew the odds and could calculate his chances. He seldom put his precious blunt on the line for games of random chance or luck, only science and logic.

Tonight, though, Pemberton was the wild card, the joker in the deck. Sloane had no way of figuring which way the old man would lean. Of course he still had his hole cards, but the duke didn’t want to use them unless necessary.

He lightly squeezed Lisanne’s hand, between them, for what reassurance he could give. She squeezed his back. The girl had pluck, thank goodness. They’d get through this.

Squire was ordering the sheriff to put down his pistol in the name of civilization, if not out of fear the lobcock would sneeze and shoot the ceiling down on their heads. Kelly, too, had to lay his weapon aside before the magistrate would begin. St. Sevrin didn’t mind; his was tucked into his waistcoat, ready to hand. He wasn’t that much of a gambler.

First Pemberton listened to the vicar without letting Findley interrupt. He looked over all the papers: the special license, the marriage lines, the letter from the estate administrator. This last not only gave permission, but stated that the marriage settlements were extremely favorable to Mackensie’s client.

“So you thought everything was in order?” Pemberton asked the vicar.

“I did question the need for such haste, although now I see why His Grace wished to get the wedding performed in a timely fashion.”

“And to your thinking the marriage is legitimate?”

“In the eyes of the Church, certainly, with the archbishop’s signature on the special license and two attendants to witness the vows. I truly thought I could go seek my bed.”

“And do you still feel the marriage is lawful and binding?”

“Oh, there’s no question of that. They’re well and truly married. The question is whether they should stay so. Sir Alfred believes I have only to tear up the papers to have the marriage disappear, which is patently untrue. On the other hand, the gentleman did present some feasible grounds for having the proceedings annulled. He claimed that the bride’s hand had been promised elsewhere, to his son Nigel, in fact, and that she was of such diminished mental capacity that her vows should not be binding.”

Sir Alfred was smirking. “Not just feasible grounds for dissolution, but legal certainties. Do
you want to hear me
now?”

“I’d like to hear my wife snoring now, but I suppose I have to hear you out if the vicar is done. Vicar? Reverend?” The clergyman had nodded off, thinking his part in the proceedings was at an end. “Lucky devil.”

So Pemberton listened to Sir Alfred spout about his beloved, befuddled niece, how she needed the care of her family, not some avaricious villain who chanced upon a pigeon for plucking, etc., etc. There was so much
cetera
that Pemberton was ready for a nap himself. He shut Findley up and listened to the sheriff swear how he thought he was protecting a loony, by trying to get her back home.

When St. Sevrin would have spoken, thinking it must be his turn, Pemberton bade him hold his horses. “I’ll get to you next, Your Grace.” He picked up his teacup, stared at the contents a moment, then set it aside. “I’ll have that brandy after all.”

Kelly started forward, as did Mary. Both should have left long ago, but since no one had ordered them out, they stayed. Even Sloane attempted to get to the bottle first
,
but Lisanne hopped up before he could rise. Unfortunately one of the pins in her hem stuck in the frayed fabric of the sofa’s skirt. “
Merde,
”
she cursed, and pulled at her entangled gown, revealing her bare toes. Nigel snickered through the cloth over his face, and St. Sevrin groaned. The vicar snored.

Pemberton wiped his spectacles, replaced them on the bridge of his nose, and took another look. “Thank you, my dear” was all he said when she put the glass in his hand. He waited until her back was turned on her way toward the sofa, to check the snifter for other life-forms. Then he addressed the baronet: “Sir Alfred, I am having a problem with your claims. If, as you say, your niece is of unsound mind, why should you wish to pursue her marriage to your son? You cannot want your grandchildren to be Bedlam-bred. No, you cannot have it both ways. If she is not competent to marry St. Sevrin, she is not fit to marry your son.”

“So they won’t marry.”

Nigel was heard to mumble “Thank goodness” before his father drowned him out with, “We’ll just make sure Annie is kept safe at home.”

“Her money, you mean,” St. Sevrin put in, which drew the magistrate’s attention his way.

“Findley’s motives are suspect, Your Grace, but yours are transparent. Everyone knows you’re badly dipped.”

The duke just nodded, tight-lipped.

“And you have a devilish reputation as a womanizer. Who is to say you didn’t seduce an innocent young girl away from her family?”

“I am,” the duke replied. “I married Lady Neville in good faith.”

“Yes, but you are a practiced rake who could find it all too easy to take advantage of a poor harebrained heiress.”

St. Sevrin was on his feet. “I did not, and my
wife
is not a simpleton to be led astray by a facile tongue. My
wife
is an intelligent woman who knows her own mind.”

“Intelligent enough to curse in French, although I’m sure her parents never intended her to learn such. Sit down, Your Grace, the lady’s intelligence has never been in question. You’re forgetting I’ve known her since she was born. I’ve even seen some of the translations she’s done to continue her father’s work. Very well received in learned journals, I assure you. What are you reading now, my dear?”

Lisanne searched for pockets to find her book. “I’m sorry, it’s in my other gown. I am rereading Plato’s
Phaedo,
sir. As extensive as Papa’s library is, it hasn’t been kept current and most of the volumes on agriculture do not bear a second reading.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure. And in what language did you say you were reading Socrates, my dear?”

“Why, the Greek, of course. Oh, but I am also reading Herr Mittlebaum’s book of natural medicines. His publisher has promised to make the necessary corrections.”

Squire Pemberton turned to Nigel. “What was the last book you read, young man?”

“Book?” Nigel tried to think of one. “Well, a fellow doesn’t want to fill his head with all that rumgumption.”

“And your daughter?” the magistrate asked Sir Findley. “What books has she been reading?”

“How the devil should I know? And what’s that got to—”

Lisanne knew. “Oh, Esmé is a prodigious reader, Squire. She reads Maria Edgeworth and Mrs. Radcliffe, all the Minerva Press novels she can find.”

“Which put more nonsensical notions in a miss’s head than any seven silver-tongued devils,” Squire declared. “I know, my wife reads ’em and sighs when I can’t make pretty speeches or ride
ventre a terre
to her rescue. Rescue her from what, I say, her lisping French coiffeur? Bah. Forty years, and she wants pretty speeches.” He harrumphed again at the thought. “Anyway, I suppose we are all now in accord that Lady Neville’s intelligence is not in question?”

Sir Alfred had to nod his agreement. “But—”

“And as to whether she can sew or paint or play a pretty tune, that has nothing to say to her competence to enter the married state. All that caterwauling and banging on the ivories always gives me the headache anyway. The only good thing about getting old is you don’t hear it so well.”

“But—” Sir Alfred was determined to be heard.

Squire Pemberton was growing deafer by the moment, it seemed. “Now, there is an important question to this annulment business that no one’s mentioned yet. The likeliest cause for dissolving a marriage is when the bride cannot or will not perform her marital duties. Is that a problem, my dear?”

Without so much as blinking, Lisanne answered that it was no problem whatsoever. “His Grace requires a son for the dukedom and another for the barony.”

“I see you’ve your work cut out for you, lad,” the squire chuckled, bringing the first blush to St. Sevrin’s cheeks in more years than he could remember.

Pemberton sighed. “So we’re left with the issue of mental competency. There’s no doubt that there’s an odd kick to missy’s gallop.” He pointedly stared at her bare feet. “The villagers talk, the country folk whisper. I ignore most of it, but I’ve heard tales even before yours, Sir Alfred, and the sheriff’s tonight. Now, I don’t claim to be any physician, but I am the one you asked to decide this argle-bargle.”

“Ask her about the fairies,” Nigel prompted, and his father took it up.

“Yes, ask her if she speaks to the Little People in the woods, Squire, so we can all go home.”

Lisanne looked at the duke, trying to judge his reaction. Sloane merely raised one eyebrow. “It’s your call, sweetings.”

She studied her hands a moment, when the only sounds were the vicar’s snores and the sheriff’s snivels. “Yes,” she finally answered. “I did think I spoke to the Wood Folk, when I was a child.”

“And now?”

Sadly she shook her head no. “Now I am grown up.”

“She’s lying!” her uncle insisted, shouting so loudly he woke up the vicar. “Make her say whether she believes in fairies or not.”

“Fairs?” the vicar asked. “Are we discussing the village fairs?”

“Go back to sleep, Reverend,” Squire Pemberton directed, waiting for Lisanne’s answer.

Instead she asked him a question: “Is your wife insane? She’s said time and again that she refuses to step foot on Priory land because it’s haunted. But has she ever seen a ghost? Spoken to one? Has anyone who claims to believe in ghosts seen one? And you, sir,” she inquired of the yawning vicar, “do you believe in angels?”

“Why, of course I do, child.”

“Yet you’ve never seen one or spoken to one, have you?”

The vicar laughed. “You have to be a saint to speak to an angel, or in heaven among them.”

“Yes, but you believe anyway. And without meaning any blasphemy, there is the belief in God Himself. How many people do you know who have ever seen Him, or spoken to Him—and gotten a reply?”

“But we see His works, child. That is enough. It is for the prophets and the martyrs to converse with the Almighty.”

Squire nodded. “I get your point, missy. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“And belief is an act of faith, not an act of lunacy.”

“Is this place really haunted, Pa?” Nigel wanted to know, looking over his shoulder.

Findley hadn’t quite followed the discussion, either. “Didn’t she just admit she believes in pixies?”

“I believe anything is possible.”

“Well then, missy,” Squire asked, “do you think it’s possible to make a go of this marriage?”

You
mean you’re going to let her marry this wastrel?” Findley squawked, as if the hand of doom were closing around his throat.

St. Sevrin’s patience was seconds away from doing just that, but it was the magistrate who answered: “I’m not going to
let
her do anything. She’s already done it.”

“But, but he’s a ne’er-do-well, just marrying her for the money. He’ll gamble it all away in a sennight and leave her destitute.”

“I doubt even St. Sevrin could go through Neville’s fortune in a sennight.” Pemberton glanced at the papers again. “According to this, Her Grace will have a handsome jointure of her own that the duke can’t touch.”

Findley threw his hands in the air. “Fine, then she’ll waste it herself. Most likely give it all to beggars and orphans, the way she does with whatever money I give her. Can’t even trust her with an allowance, like my Esmé.”

“Tut, tut,” the vicar put in. “There’s nothing wrong with charity, Sir Alfred.”

Pemberton agreed. “She might even manage to do some good with her fortune, Findley, amazing as it might seem to you.”

“Then let her give
your
blunt away!” Findley yelled, tripping over his own greed. Squire coughed. That was all.