Barbara Metzger (15 page)

“Well, she don’t know what she’s getting into, then. Her aunt and I kept her insulated from the evils”—a sidelong sneer in the duke’s direction—“of men such as St. Sevrin. Wild to a fault, profligate with money they never earn, careless of their own lives or others’, and as immoral as a band of baboons.”

“Actually, baboons have close-knit families,” Lisanne began, to be shushed by St. Sevrin with a laugh.

“I’ve heard better defenses from a pickpocket caught red-handed.”

Squire wasn’t laughing. “I regret that Sir Alfred does have a point, my dear. I’ve never seen you at the assemblies or tea parties in the neighborhood. You’ve had no London come-out, no exposure whatsoever to young men that I know of.” He ignored Nigel completely. “Are you certain you know what you are doing, marrying a man with His Grace’s lamentable reputation?”

Lisanne looked at her new husband, the lines on his face, the puffiness near his eyes, the brandy glass never far from his hand. She also saw the strong jaw and straight nose. More important, she saw the damp spot near his knee where he’d let Becka rest her drooling chin while he scratched her ears.

“Major Lord Shearingham was a hero,” she said. “General Wellesley trusted him with his plans and his platoons. I can trust the Duke of St. Sevrin no less.”

Kelly, from the back of the room, called out, “Here, here.”

Sloane lifted her hand to his lips and spoke for her ears only: “Thank you, Duchess. I shall do my damnedest to live up to your confidence.”

Squire wasn’t quite satisfied that Lisanne knew what she was in for, taking on a here-and-thereian. “Some women get the deuced romantical notion that a reformed rake makes the best husband. Most likely from that drivel they read. I say the tiger doesn’t change its stripes until it’s a fur rug. You aren’t thinking of trying to reform St. Sevrin, are you, my dear?”

She smiled and softly answered: “I thought we had determined that I am not crazy, sir.”

The magistrate and the vicar laughed. Even St. Sevrin’s mouth turned up.

“You’ll do, lass,” Squire Pemberton pronounced. “You’ll do fine. Congratulations, Your Grace, you’ve won a fine wife for yourself. See that you deserve her.” He started to lift his bulk out of the chair. The vicar was already heading for the door.

“No!” Sir Alfred screamed. “No, I am not satisfied. Justice has not been served! This travesty of a wedding has to be annulled. I’ll go to the lord high magistrate in London. I’ll go to the archbishop himself!”

“Why not the prince?” St. Sevrin taunted. “Our Regent would do anything to get out of his own marriage. Perhaps he’d look more kindly on your petition.” He stood slowly and flexed his fingers before forming them into fists. “Damn weak left,” he muttered, then warned the baronet, “Of course, if you approach Prinny or the courts or the Church, if you so much as breathe the word annulment ever again, I’ll tear you limb from limb.”

Findley stepped closer to the sheriff. “You…you can’t do that! This is England, you devil, not some army outpost or battlefield.” He turned to Pemberton. “Tell him he can’t do that!”

“Oh, but I can,” St. Sevrin breathed while Squire looked on, “and I would derive great pleasure out of it, too, after what you’ve done to my lady; but I don’t need to.” He paced closer to the baronet, who seemed to shrink with every step the duke took. “No, I do not need to, because you aren’t going to make any more trouble. I let you play the game out your way, Findley, so you would be satisfied, so there would be no question of the legality of this marriage. I let you embarrass my wife with this inquest, and I let you abuse the hospitality of my house. But you still aren’t content, are you?”

“I’ll never rest, I tell you, until I have Annie back where she belongs! I’m not afraid of your threats.” Everyone could see his spindly knees knocking together.

“Very well, then, it’s time I laid the rest of my cards on the table. First, my wife’s name is Lisanne, not Annie. That’s ‘Her Grace’ to you. Second, if you don’t shut up, don’t get out of my sight with your spineless sprig of a son, I’ll be the one to go to court. I’ll have you charged with embezzlement so fast your head will spin. You’ll have to answer to the magistrates and Mr. Mackensie for every shilling you’ve spent on your wife and children, not on your niece. I’ll bring in the local merchants to discuss your so-called contracts, and the Neville tenants to discuss improvements that were never done to their farms.”

“A bunch of country yokels? You can’t prove anything!”

“Mr. Mackensie never throws anything away. Every inflated bill you sent, every bogus expenditure, they are all there, just waiting for you to make a peep about the state of my marriage or my wife’s mind.”

“No one will believe you. Everyone knows you’re a drunk and a debaucher.”

St. Sevrin studied his fingernails. “You really are getting on my nerves, Findley. Do you actually believe anyone in London will take the word of a jumped-up bartholemew babe over a duke’s? Over that of a wealthy duchess and her eminently respected solicitor? Think for once, Findley. You would have to make reparation of all that money. Do you have that much squirreled away? I doubt it. You’d be ruined. You could even land in gaol or the penal colonies.”

Squire nodded. “Thieves get transported. That’s the way of it.”

“Wouldn’t do much for Esmé’s Season, neither, Pa,” Nigel volunteered.

“The nodcock is right for once. Your entire family will be ostracized, Findley. Think, man. One word from you about my wife means one word from me to Prinny. You won’t be accepted anywhere except Botany Bay. I am willing to let it rest, Findley—I won’t even sue for reparations—if you are willing to let us alone.”

“Let’s go, Pa,” Nigel urged. “Before he sets the dog on us. He’s done everything else.”

Defeated, deflated, Sir Alfred turned to leave.

“I’ll have your word, Findley,” St. Sevrin called after him. “Your word as a gentleman, for what it’s worth, in front of witnesses, that you accept this marriage.”

The bitter flavor of failure was too strong in Findley’s mouth for him to answer. He jerked his head in acquiescence and left. Kelly slammed the door behind him and his little entourage.

*

Champagne would have been a nice touch, had there been any. Instead Squire lifted his glass of brandy and toasted the newlyweds. The vicar raised his cup of tea to their health, and Kelly gave Mary a sip from his flask to put their seal on the marriage.

“Good health, long life, strong sons… Did I forget anything, Reverend?”

The vicar had to think a moment, so sleepy was his brain. It was gone after two in the morning, and his tea was cold. “Uh, happiness and understanding, joy in each other, that’s what I always wish for the young people I wed.” Right now he wished them all to the devil, the good Lord forgive him.

Kelly had one more toast to make: “And no more plaguey relatives.”

Then they were gone. Squire Pemberton had his own rig, but Kelly had to drive the others back to the vicarage. Mary would gather her belongings, tell her mum the good news, and return in the morning to take up her new employment. Kelly allowed as how he may as well sleep with the horses in the little stable behind the manse, for otherwise he’d no more get home than he’d have to turn around to fetch Mary back.

Mostly they were all giving the Duke and Duchess of St. Sevrin privacy, which was the last thing their graces wanted, unless it was another visit from Uncle Alfred.

Sloane helped Lisanne carry the tea things and the glasses back to the kitchen, neither knowing what to say or what to do. Becka padded after them and the remaining pastries.

“I could brew a fresh pot of tea, if you’d like,” she offered, and “Are you warm enough? You could wrap yourself twice around in my greatcoat on the peg there,” he suggested. They both declined. The dog started gnawing on the ham bone.

When the sound started grating on his nerves, Sloane cleared his throat. “I don’t think we’ll have any more problems with your relations.”

“No, I don’t suppose so. You gave Uncle Alfred no choice. Thank you for what you did. And for what you didn’t do.”

“What I didn’t do?”

“You didn’t shoot him or strangle him or knock him down. I shouldn’t have liked to see that, even if he deserved it. Reasoning is always better than brute force. Nigel doesn’t count because he has no reason.”

“I daresay we’ve seen the last of them either way. Findley has a small holding in Richmond, doesn’t he?”

Lisanne licked her dry lips. “Yes, outside of London. I, ah, did tell Esmé that she could still make her come-out from Neville House. It’s right in Town and has a huge ballroom.”

“And a much more prestigious address to boot. But don’t you think we should have discussed it first?”

Her chin came up. “You said Neville House was to be mine, to do with as I would.”

“Yes, and I also thought you would be more comfortable there while St. Sevrin House undergoes repairs.”

“Don’t you think we should have discussed
that
first?”

Sloane ran his hand through his already disarranged hair. “I see we both have a great deal to learn about being married. The vicar did wish us understanding.”

“And I thought you understood I had no wish to go to London, to either house. I told you I didn’t intend to live in your pocket, and I am more comfortable in the country.”

“Yes, you did tell me all that, but I thought that going to Town as a married lady, as a duchess, would be different. You wouldn’t be on the marriage mart or dependent on the goodwill of those high-in-the-instep hypocrites who rule Almack’s.” And he wouldn’t have to worry about leaving her here alone.

“No, it makes no difference. I prefer to stay in the country. I have my work with the botanical medicines, and the tenants will need some direction until you find a competent bailiff. The steward from Neville Hall is a good man and can begin improvements, but there is too much work on the two estates for one man.”

“And you would help?” No other female of his acquaintance would turn down a London Season for the farmyard. No other female of his acquaintance would be a ha’penny’s bit of good there, either. In her pretty gown and neatly combed hair, she’d let him forget for a moment how very different his bride was from women of her class. Hell, she was different from women of
any
class. He didn’t want to think about that right now.

“I can help,” she was saying, without artifice or boasting. “I know the land.” Not “I have studied the land,” or “I have read agricultural journals,” but “I know the land.” Lisanne was trying to tell him, trying to make him understand, as the vicar said they should. “In the woods—”

“No.” He didn’t want to hear about that right now, either. “It’s late, Duchess, and your eyelids are drooping. Go to bed. We’ll talk another time. I’m afraid my room is the only one made up for now. I’ll show you the way.”

Her eyelids weren’t drooping at all now. Lisanne’s blue eyes were wide-open as they flew to his. She didn’t even have to put the question into words. “No, I am not going to join you tonight, Duchess. We’re both too tired and upset. I’ll take Kelly’s pallet here by the stove. It’s no hardship after the army.”

Instead of arguing as he thought she might, Lisanne merely gathered up her old dress and her boots and followed him down the hall. As he lit her way up the stairs and down the echoing corridor, Sloane felt he had to reassure his barefoot bride that she was safe. “The Priory ghosts only appear when there’s a death or disaster in the family, or so the story goes. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of ghosts, Your Grace. Besides, Becka will be with me.”

Fine, St. Sevrin thought on his way back down the stairs, he got to sleep on a thin mattress on the floor while a great hulking dog shared his bed upstairs. And he’d never even got to kiss the bride.

Nothing to be frightened of? Lisanne was alone in this great ramshackle mansion with a complete and total stranger who now had her life in his keeping. She very well knew that all the signed settlements and legal documents in the world wouldn’t change the fact that a woman was her husband’s property. The duke could force her to go to London. He could force her to share his bed.

He said he wouldn’t come to her tonight. But that’s what he was saying now. In a few hours, after a few more bottles of spirits, what then? She’d seen Nigel in his cups too often to trust a man’s promises. Even her uncle’s meanness was magnified tenfold by a night at the bottle. And this man, her husband, was already a creature of violence and strength, used to getting his own way, reveling in the challenge. What could be more challenging than a woman—no, a wife—who refused her favors?

And what of tomorrow or next week if he couldn’t find some village girl to satisfy his needs? How long would Sloane be willing to wait? Lisanne wasn’t ready. Nothing to be frightened of? Perhaps St. Sevrin had taken too many hits to the head at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Parlor.

Lisanne looked around the bedroom for hints of the man’s character, even knowing he’d only been here a matter of days. The room had his mark already, or his man Kelly’s. The massive canopied bed was neatly made, albeit with a bedstead that appeared moth-eaten. The comb, brush, and mirror on the dresser were aligned with military precision. The book on the nightstand was a history of the Mahratta Wars. Lisanne was not surprised, nor at the wine bottle and glass next to it. He’d been a good soldier. Lately he’d been drinking a good deal of his life away. Perhaps he was in pain from that wound he’d mentioned. She’d have to ask about it when she knew him better.

The pitcher and basin were chipped, the towel slightly damp, the mirror tarnished, but those told nothing of the man. There was no other sign that anyone had stayed here. Lisanne unfolded her old dress and emptied the pockets. Books, bottles, stones, an iris root, various bits of bark and greenery wrapped in scraps of cloth came forth, with paper and pencil, sewing kit, a handful of pins and half of a roll gone hard. She fed the last to Becka and scattered the rest on the night table, the dresser, the wash-stand. Now the dark-paneled room had life, her life.