Joan Wolf (7 page)

“Neither did I.”

His eyes on her were intent. “Shall I speak to your uncle?”

She smiled at him, a glowing vital smile that illuminated her face. “Yes. I heard from Papa. He says you will have no trouble enrolling in the University of Edinburgh. We can live with him and ...”

He listened to her run on, a look of incredulity growing on his face. Finally he cut in harshly. “You really don’t expect me to go back to school?”  

The light died from her face to be replaced by a braced and wary stillness. “If you don’t return to school,” she finally answered, “how do you intend to earn a living? My money from my mother isn’t enough to live on.”

All the muscles in Ian’s face hardened. “I’ll go into the army, of course.”

“Then don’t bother to speak to my uncle,” she returned with ominous calm. “I won’t marry you.”

“Frances! You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

And there it was. He looked at the slender loveliness in front of him. He could snap her in two with his hands, but he could not break her will. It was a granite wall, firm, categorical, unassailable. He tried once more. “You may have to marry me.”

Her eyes were grass green. “No, I won’t,” she lied determinedly. “I am all right.”

Ian fought to get a grip on his anger. He wanted to shake her. Worse, he wanted to throw her down . . . Frances correctly read the look in his eyes and stepped backwards. She knew that terrifying temper. “Don’t touch me,” she said breathlessly.

   A mask of control came down over his features, almost but not quite hiding the passion beneath. “I have no intention of touching you,” he said coldly. “I will give you a warning, though, Frances. This is the last time I’ll ask you to marry me. You won’t get a chance to change your mind.”

Her face suddenly blazed. “Go marry the army!” she shouted, as angry now as he. “That’s your true love.”

He stared at her for a few silent moments and a nerve quivered in his cheek. “Goodbye,” he finally said in the same cold voice as before. He crossed the room and went out, shutting the door behind him. Outside he paused for a minute, his head bent; there was no sound from within. He straightened and walked quickly down the hall, his stride long and even as usual.

Frances listened to him go. “He’ll be back,” she said to her portrait as the sound of his steps died away. “I know he will.”

* * * *

After he left Frances, Ian went directly to the house of Andres Bello, where he was fortunate enough to find Simon Bolivar. They had a long and serious conversation. The next day, when Colonel Bolivar sailed for South America in a British man-of-war, Ian Macdonald was with him.

   It was left to Douglas to break the news to Frances. He had not had an opportunity to talk to Ian. There had been a letter for him at the breakfast table yesterday morning, and one for Ian’s mother. In his letter to Douglas Ian had spelled out his reasons for accompanying Bolivar.           “I have spoken to Colonel Bolivar at length,” he wrote. “There are many things about the situation in South America that I do not understand, but I do recognize the desire for independence is something worth fighting for. And Bolivar is, I believe, a great man. He will be to South America what Washington was to the United States. The opportunity to join an enterprise of such magnitude is irresistible.” He mentioned Frances only indirectly, in his concluding remark. “After all, there is nothing for me at home.”

So now Douglas had to face her, and he was not looking forward to the task. He asked to see Lady Mary first and briefly explained his mission . She sent for Frances to come to the drawing room and, after an anxious look at her niece, left the room. “Mr. Macdonald has some news for you, my dear,” she said softly. “If you want me I will be in the morning parlor.”

Douglas was left alone with Frances. He had worried all day yesterday about this encounter. It was the first time, so far as he knew, that Frances had not gotten her way. He did not know how she would react; Frances, under the sweet serenity she presented to the world, had a temper almost as dangerous as Ian’s. Douglas, who had watched and loved her for years, was one of the few to realize that.

“What is the matter, Douglas?” She looked pale but composed.

“Frances.” It had to be said. “Frances, Ian has gone to South America with Colonel Bolivar. He sailed yesterday.”

“What?” Her long green eyes stared uncomprehendingly at Douglas’s concerned face. “South America?”

“Venezuela, to be precise. Caracas has declared its independence from Spain. There is bound to be fighting. General Miranda has gone as well, to command the South American troops.”

“South America,” she said again, slowly this time.  She felt bitterness surge through her heart. Never, it seemed to her, would she forgive him for this. She stood still, with a hard, frozen face, and let Douglas’s words wash over her. Finally a phrase of his penetrated her consciousness. “What did you say?” she asked.

“I said that one of the reasons he went was, as he put it, ‘there is nothing for me at home.’ “

There was a blank silence and then Frances blindly raised her hands toward him. He moved quickly to take her in his arms, feeling her hold to him fiercely as the sobs of deep, terrible grief shook her. “It will be all right,” he found himself saying. “He will come back.” But she sobbed on and refused to be comforted.

Chapter Nine

0 how can I be blithe and glad,

Or how can I gang brisk and braw, When the bonnie lad that I lo’e best

Is o’er the hills and far away?

—
ROBERT
BURNS

Robert Sedburgh had gone home to Aysgarth after he left Wick, and when he returned to London a month later it was with the thought of reporting to the Horse Guards with the news that he was ready to return to Portugal. The information that Ian Macdonald had left for South America sent him round to Hanover Square in a hurry. For the first time in a month, hope flickered in his heart. He had been so sure she was going to marry Macdonald.

 He found Frances sitting with her aunt in the drawing room. She looked pale but she smiled when she saw him and asked him to be seated.              “What does Frances Stewart look like?” his mother had asked curiously, having heard reports from his aunts in London.  As he looked now at the blonde head of the girl before him, he mentally shook his head. There was no describing Frances.

She talked with him calmly and amusingly and said yes, she was going to Mrs. Carstairs’s ball that evening and yes, she would save a dance for him. As he left his brow was faintly puckered. On the surface she seemed the same, but the springing vitality he had so loved was gone. He had never seen her so subdued.

He watched her carefully for a week and then, having prepared Lady Mary, he called in Hanover Square and was allowed to see her alone.

   “I asked you a question some months ago, Miss Stewart,” he said steadily. “You begged me at the time not to pressure you for an immediate answer. I have obeyed your wishes but I have not forgotten. Do you feel it possible to answer me now?”

She refused to meet his eyes. “I cannot marry you, my lord,” she said in a voice so low he could barely hear it.

Lord Robert had been a very good soldier. He decided it was time to go on the attack. “Why not?” he asked unexpectedly.

She moved restlessly to the window with her lithe long walk. She fingered the velvet drapes. “Because I don’t love you.”

“I love you,” he answered quietly. “Don’t you think, perhaps, you might learn to love me in return? I can be very persuasive.”

At last she looked at him. His blue eyes were tender as they rested on her troubled face. It was the tenderness that broke her. She bent her head and he saw the heavy tears falling on her hands as she held to the velvet drapery. “Frances!” He crossed the room swiftly to stand beside her and she raised her tear-streaked face to his.

“I can’t marry you, my lord,” she repeated. “I can’t marry anyone. Not now.”

“Not now.” At those words a vivid picture flashed in his mind, of Ian touching Frances with a smile. His voice was uncharacteristically rough as he asked, “What did he do to you?”

Her eyes widened until they were great liquid pools of green. He was standing over her so that his shoulders blotted out the rest of the room, but his aspect was not at all menacing. Rather, it was strangely comforting. He was on her side, Frances thought confusedly. And because she was frightened and didn’t know what to do, she told him. “I’m going to have a baby.”

He felt as if someone had hit him across the face without provocation or warning. “My God!” he said, and she bowed her head again.          “Macdonald’s?” he asked shortly, and the golden head nodded.

 Lord Robert’s blue eyes were black with anger. “And he left you?” he asked incredulously.

“He didn’t know,” her voice was muffled. She went on, automatically coming to Ian’s defense, “He asked me. I said I was all right.”

“But why?”

She couldn’t tell him the real reason. “I was angry,” she said. She was as still now as she had been restless before. She raised her beautiful eyes to his and said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

He stared down at her, and there was a white line around his mouth. “I said once there was nothing I wouldn’t do for you,” he said at last. “I meant it. Marry me.”

She looked pale as a waxen saint. “I can’t do that.”

His mouth twisted. “Do you find me so repulsive?”

“No!” There was distress in her voice. “Of course not. Only there is more involved here than just the two of us. You are a man of great position. You cannot accept another man’s son as your heir.”

“The child may be a girl,” he said steadily. “I’ll take the chance.” He smiled somewhat crookedly. “Don’t think me a hero, Frances. I thought I had lost you. If this is the only way I can get you, I’ll take it. If we are married immediately no one will ever know the child isn’t mine.”

She looked searchingly into his face. What she saw there seemed to reassure her. “Are you certain?” she said hesitantly.

He had not yet touched her. He put his hands on her shoulders now and felt her stiffen slightly. A sudden fear struck him. His love for Frances was not at all brotherly. With sudden decision he pulled her closer, bending his head to find her lips.

His mouth was warm and hard and insistent on hers and Frances instinctively resisted him. But then she opened her eyes and saw his face, the bright hair falling forward over his forehead.

He was not at all like Ian. Slowly her heart quieted and she leaned against him, comforted by his strong arms and slow-moving kisses. When he finally raised his head his blue eyes looked relieved. “It’s going to be all right,” he said in a rich, deep voice.

“Yes,” she replied on a note of wonder. “I think it is.”

   They were married a week later and Robert took her first to the lakes and then home to Aysgarth. His father and mother were pleased to learn that their son had carried off the girl who was being called the beauty of the century, and soon they came to appreciate Frances for her own sake. They were gentle and kind, reasonable and satisfied. The house itself was very lovely, with huge rooms furnished with sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century furniture. It was the sort of house that had grown gradually, under centuries of Sedburgh guardianship. Frances, who was used to Scottish country houses, products of colder winters and families with considerably less money than the Sedburghs, was very impressed. The first time she had seen it it had seemed enormous and powerful and intimidating, but it was the kind of household that was still rooted in its neighborhood, and she soon found that while the scale of life was different from what she was used to, the substance was not.

Robert’s three younger brothers were at school, so the Earl and Countess of Aysgarth were the only other inhabitants of the house for most of the time. When it became obvious that Frances was going to have a child they were delighted. Lady Aysgarth spent hours telling Frances about the history of the Sedburgh family, which had acquired its earldom under Elizabeth.

   Frances was wretched. She had lied to everyone about the expected date of birth, and no one seemed to doubt her word. She was tall and carried well; it never seemed to occur to anyone that she was two months more pregnant than she had said she was. It was not fear of discovery that made her so miserable. It was the deception itself. The more she heard about the ancient lineage of the Sedburgh family, the more she saw of their quality, the more profoundly unhappy she became. When she brought her trouble up to Robert, he was always reassuring, “If the baby is a boy, he will be my son. That is all there is to it, Frances. He will be brought up here at Aysgarth and he will learn to love it as well as any Sedburgh. Don’t worry.”

But, of course, she did worry. He made light of her concern but it was not a light matter. She knew that and he knew it as well. She prayed night and day to the Holy Virgin that her baby would be a girl.

On May 7, Frances’s maid came into her bedroom to find her lying on the floor. She had been rearranging some flowers, had stepped back to regard them, tripped over a small stool, fallen, and hit her head on the comer of a table. She had knocked herself out. The maid shrieked for help and Robert, who was coming up the stairs, ran into the room. Frances was just stirring. White-lipped with fear he carried her to the bed and sent for the doctor. Aside from a painful bruise on her temple, she was pronounced to be all right. The doctor recommended a good night’s sleep.

Her labor pains began early the following morning. She went through the connecting door into Robert’s room and woke him. At the touch of her hand on his arm, he sat up immediately. “The pains have started, Rob,” she said quietly. “I think you’d better send for the doctor.”

He swung himself out of bed and put a supporting arm around her. “Let me put you back into bed first.” As they returned slowly to her room he said calmly, “Frances, it was the fall. That’s why the baby is early.”