The Bride Insists (10 page)

Clare looked at Selina; she had discussed this with her beforehand, and Selina had agreed to help. “Well…” said Selina, drawing out the word.

“If you don't mind people whispering about you behind their hands,” added Clare in the same dubious tone.

“What?” Tamsyn frowned at her.

“If they don't appear with the family at church, everyone will assume there's something to hide.” Selina spoke directly to Clare, leaving the twins out of it.

“I would find it uncomfortable myself,” Clare allowed.

“Everybody knows us,” said Tegan.

Clare nodded. “They see you walking in the countryside.”

“In your unsuitable clothing,” remarked Selina. Clare gave her a cautionary glance.

“Wandering like tinkers,” said Tamsyn, defiance and a hint of uncertainty in her tone.

“Appearances are so capable of misinterpretation,” Selina said, speaking only to Clare again.

“Yes, when you're not really acquainted with a person…” Clare let her voice trail off.

What
were
they
up
to?
Jamie wondered.

“We don't want to be acquainted,” declared Tegan.

Clare nodded again, as if her defiant stance was quite reasonable. “Social obligations can be wearisome, but if you are never met or spoken to…”

Selina looked grave. “People will make up reasons for their absence,” she said to Clare.

“They tend to do so, and very odd ones seem to be preferred.”

Tamsyn scowled. “We don't care what they…”

“If they can't be seen in public, now that the family is officially in residence…” began Selina.

Clare pursed her lips. “Then perhaps they are… unfit for society.”

“Uncouth,” said Selina.

“What is un…?”

“Or even mad,” the older woman continued.

“We are not!”

Clare shook her head at the vagaries of society. “Or… malformed somehow.”

“Mal…?”

“And that their brother is ashamed to be seen with them,” Selina finished.

Jamie sat up straighter at this one. “I am not,” he responded. And then wondered if he had been supposed to say something different, to follow what was obviously a prepared script. But he wouldn't pretend to be ashamed of his sisters. Driven distracted, yes, absolutely; but not ashamed.

“Of course not,” Clare agreed. “But once one becomes the subject of gossip, it spreads like wildfire.”

“The most idiotic tales are believed,” said Selina. “I've seen it so often. I think, as you said, Clare, that people
prefer
the more outlandish stories.”

“And then it's nearly impossible to be rid of them,” agreed Clare. “They'll be told and re-told for years, even when they've been proven false and—”

“All right, we'll go!” cried Tamsyn. She and her twin exchanged a heated glance. Clare was certain the girls could communicate a wealth of information without a word.

“Just to stop you from talking and talking,” conceded Tegan.

“But we really don't care what
anyone
thinks!” Tamsyn's hard stare made it clear that this sentiment was aimed at Clare.

The girls rose from the table and stood side by side in solidarity. Clare merely smiled at them and turned away. “Shall we all walk to church then? Do we have a carriage?”

“An ancient one,” Jamie replied. He avoided his sisters' smoldering gazes. “And no proper team to pull it just now.”

“A lovely brisk walk then. We can meet in the hall.”

“Nine thirty perhaps?” said Selina.

“I think that would be ample time.” Clare rose as well. “I had a sofa and some chairs moved into the solar. Shall we retire there this evening?”

Selina stood. “That sounds pleasant.”

The two women went out, leaving Jamie alone with the glowering twins. He shifted uneasily in his chair. So much of the time they'd spent together had involved wrangling. Should he congratulate them on their cooperation? No, definitely a mistake.

“We're not stupid,” said Tegan.

“We know we're doing what she wanted,” affirmed her sister.

“It's just that Anna's niece told Alys Mason that we're daft.” Tegan's lower lip trembled very slightly. Or, no, he'd imagined it, Jamie thought. That wasn't possible. Not Tegan.

“So we will go to church this
once
.”

“And show them that we are
not
!”

“But that is
all
!”

Turning in unison, they marched out of the dining room—shoulders square, their small forms almost birdlike in their ridiculous shirts and breeches. A tremor of unease went through Jamie. It made his throat tighten, though he couldn't pinpoint the cause. He refilled his wineglass, emptying the bottle, although no one else had drunk any. Sipping, he sat alone in his newly scrubbed dining room, savoring the taste of the vintage.

His wife and her companion sat in the solar. His sisters were closed in their room, undoubtedly accompanied by Randolph. He'd seen no sign of the dog in the stables. Jamie didn't feel as if he belonged in either place. He sipped again, and was reminded of other nights in this room, when he'd slumped over a second, or a third, bottle and tried to blot out the certainty of a bleak future. He'd averted disaster. And he did feel triumphant. Truly, he did. Old Jenkins had been full of praise for his renovation plans.

He was just tired this evening, his mind overwhelmed by myriad tasks, his body by days in the saddle. Jamie's eyelids drooped, and he nodded over his glass. His head bowed, then jerked up. Once, and again. He finished his wine, stood unsteadily, and made his way out into the great hall. He should go and speak to Clare about… what was it? He couldn't remember.

His toe caught on an uneven floorboard, and Jamie tripped, barely avoiding a fall. He wasn't in the best condition to converse, he realized. As Harry and Andrew always said, when you're three sheets to the wind better head for a safe harbor. He'd lie down for a little while, recover his wits. Jamie turned toward the stairs and stumbled up them. In his room, he pulled off his boots and lay on the mattress fully clothed, falling headlong into sleep.

Later that evening, as Clare brushed her hair, her mind drifted irresistibly to last night. The memories were so vivid and enticing. She listened for sounds from the adjoining chamber and heard nothing. Their encounter seemed almost like a dream, or something from a different epoch, as if there were two layers to reality. She and Jamie hurried from task to task, and had disagreed a bit sharply, in a busy sunlit world. They'd caressed and exulted in a dim, sensuous realm. Tonight, the latter lay quiescent, apparently out of reach. She climbed into bed alone.

The Trehearth party set off for church not too much after nine thirty. Randolph had been the cause of a short delay, when it was discovered that he had chewed up Tegan's best dress—most likely because she'd spilled gravy down the bodice, and then crumpled it into a ball so that no one would notice and stuffed it into the bottom of her wardrobe. Another was found, even more ill-fitting than the ones Clare had already seen, and she briefly wondered whether to leave the girls behind after all. At their age, she would have been mortified to be seen in such dowdy dresses. They seemed oblivious to fashion, however, and she let it go. Their cloaks covered the worst of it. But she would have to provide the twins with a new wardrobe, which would undoubtedly be a process fraught with difficulties.

The Pendennises walked with the other household members down the path that branched from the drive and wound down the cliffs to the village in the cove. The March day was chilly but not bitter. Clare had noticed that the winter temperatures in this westerly part of the country varied little between day and night. The climate was milder than London.

Jamie had an aching head and a severe shortage of patience. He should have left some wine in that bottle, he thought, or skipped the brandy beforehand. He'd nearly downed a dose of the latter as he dressed. He'd resisted the impulse, though, substituting liberal applications of cold water to snap himself awake. His mirror told him that he was pale, with some red in his eyes that wouldn't be missed by sharp-eyed village gossips. He wasn't in the best state to be put on display to the entire neighborhood.

He ran his gaze over the rest of his party, trying to see them as strangers would. The Pendennises were as forthright and solid as ever; he knew they were respected in the village—and deservedly so. Clare looked slim and elegant, her pale hair stirred by the morning breeze. Her bonnet and cloak might be drab, but the beauty of her face and grace of her carriage more than made up for it. He'd be proud to have her on his arm. Mrs. Newton was equally respectable, if not as lovely and alluring as his wife. As for his sisters… Jamie sighed. Somehow, when dressed as young ladies, Tamsyn and Tegan always managed to look like wild creatures, captured and stuffed into alien garments that chafed at them and hampered their natural grace. He supposed that they'd brushed their hair. They must have. Yet the strands had reverted to wild black tangles; they always did, as if they possessed a life of their own. And their set expressions—martyrs being marched to the stake—didn't improve the picture.

“It's a fine church,” said Clare. She and Selina hadn't ventured inside the previous day. “It looks quite old.”

Jamie gathered his wits to respond and to smile, suddenly conscious that they were undoubtedly under observation now that they'd entered the village. “The tower was built in the fifteenth century. It's been used for beacon fires since Tudor times. The rest of the building is a bit later. Made of local stone.” They passed under the archway, through the vestibule, and into the church proper. Jamie was aware of heads turning and eyes following as they walked to the pew at the front, set aside for the Trehearth family. He'd never liked sitting there. Everyone could watch them, and they could see no one but the vicar.

Clare enjoyed the service. Reverend Carew's sermon was both thoughtful and accessible. The choir boasted some exceptional voices, which rang through the old stone arches under the domed ceiling and seemed to rise on shafts of jeweled light from the stained glass. She would like worshiping here, she decided. Meeting Selina's eyes across the smaller frames of the twins, she saw less approval in the older woman's gaze.

The Trehearth party was among the last parishioners to file out after the service. The vicar stood just outside the door, offering everyone a word. “Edward Carew,” he said to Jamie when they emerged. “I don't believe we've met, Lord Trehearth.”

Jamie shook his hand. “May I present my wife, and her friend Mrs. Newton?”

“I've had that pleasure already,” he replied, to Jamie's surprise. “Hello, Tamsyn, Tegan,” he added.

The twins turned from their observation of the lingering crowd, dropped small curtsies, and smiled up at the older man. Jamie had to clench his jaw to keep it from dropping. “I finished that book about the hinges,” said Tegan.

“Henges,” Tamsyn corrected.

Her sister shrugged. “It was very good.”

The pastor smiled down at them. His blue eyes were full of kindness for his pupils, Clare thought. The twins could not have happened upon a better mentor for pursuing their local interests. “I've just received another volume from London,” he said. “I'll show it to you when you have the time.”

“We could look now,” Tegan began.

The bright curiosity in her face was a very good sign, Clare noted. Whatever these girls' rebellious antics, they clearly loved to learn. And she firmly believed that a child who loved to learn—loved rather than saw it an advantage or curried favor by it—was sound at heart.

“Unfortunately, I am occupied at the moment,” said the vicar with twinkling eyes. He indicated the still busy churchyard and watched his sometime pupils subside into self-consciousness. Reverend Carew fervently hoped that the arrival of ladies at Trehearth would be the social salvation of Tamsyn and Tegan Boleigh. He was fond of the prickly children and, in fact, rather admired them. They'd faced a difficult lot in life with resolution and zest. If they occasionally misbehaved, he found it understandable. He also thought that their waywardness could be mended. Not easily, perhaps. But he'd seen what a bit of kindness and interest could accomplish. Turning, the vicar encountered Lady Trehearth's quite extraordinary green eyes, and he had the odd feeling that she'd followed his thoughts and agreed with them.

Feeling another gaze on him, he shifted his attention to the hazel eyes of her friend. There he found challenge and reserve, yet also some other element that drew him in a way he hadn't experienced in years. It was unsettling and quite an effort to pull his attention back to his duties. But he'd formed a plan for this post-service interlude. “Would you allow me to present some of your neighbors?” he asked Lord Trehearth. “I know you've been in London a great deal and may not have met them all.”

The village would know practically everything about them, Clare realized. Country neighborhoods were rife with gossip. They needed to find their place within this one.

As the vicar shepherded them gently toward a knot of people near the churchyard gate, Jamie felt both stiff and grateful. The man must have heard his whole history. No doubt his neighbors had been all too eager to retail it—at least as they saw it. So Reverend Carew must be well aware that Jamie was a near stranger here, despite his family's long residence. Some of his neighbors he hadn't seen since before his father's death. He hadn't had the temerity to call when he was in his teens, and no heart for it after that, while the estate teetered on the verge of bankruptcy.

“Of course you know Sir Harold and Lady Halcombe,” continued Reverend Carew smoothly.

Jamie vaguely remembered the older couple. Their land was a few miles west. His parents had visited them, and vice versa. He thought he'd met their sons—several years older than he and not much interested in a “squirt” of his vintage. But he bowed and agreed. “Of course.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Palgrove recently moved into the manor at Vanyl,” the vicar continued.

“Teddy,” said a blond young man. “My wife, Marianne.”

The pretty young woman beside him smiled and started to speak. Then her blue eyes shifted. “Arthur! Leave those flowers alone. Come here.” A small blond boy snatched his hand away from the spray of blooms decorating the church door and ran over to join them. Only then did Jamie notice a little girl hiding behind Marianne Palgrove's skirts.

“And Mr. and Mrs. Fox from Damson House,” the vicar finished.

“Graham,” supplied the middle-aged gentleman who was the last in the group. “My wife, Elizabeth.”

Jamie introduced Clare, Selina Newton, and his sisters. The twins curtsied again, to his renewed astonishment. “Knew your parents well,” said Sir Harold. Stocky and square-jawed, he was the picture of a ruddy English landowner.

“Indeed, your mother was a dear friend of mine,” added his wife.

Jamie didn't know whether this was meant as an assurance of regard or a reproach for dropping the connection.

Clare looked down as the small Palgroves gazed up. “Hello.”

“This is Margaret and Arthur,” said their mother. “We left baby Sidney at home because he
will
cry during the sermon.”

“Might have a budding dissenter on your hands, vicar,” joked her husband.

Reverend Carew merely smiled. The group chatted for a few minutes, exchanging news of the neighborhood and promises to call. “How's that dratted dog?” Mr. Fox asked the twins as the conversation was breaking up.

“Very well, thank you,” replied Tamsyn.

“Happy not to be drowned,” Tegan muttered.

Jamie couldn't tell if the man heard. They'd all been turning away toward home. He was half chagrined, half oddly relieved, to see that his sisters had not suddenly transformed into models of propriety. That would have been downright uncanny.

“I need better clothes,” Clare said to Selina as they walked back up the path side by side. She'd been conscious of the contrast between her aged, dowdy cloak and the more fashionable attire of the neighbors.

“I would be delighted to help with that,” Selina replied.

“So do the twins,” Clare said, more quietly.

“What they need and what they can be made to accept may not quite agree.”

“Indeed. How we will manage it I do not know.” Clare was cheered, however, by the evidence that the twins could behave, if they wished to. Somewhere along the line, they had been taught proper manners.

After a cold luncheon, Clare and Selina went upstairs and arrayed Clare's current wardrobe over the big four-poster bed. Indulging their mutual love of list making, they decided what might be worth further alteration and what other sorts of attire she most needed. With her drab gowns lying across the mattress and then draped over the armchair, and Selina full of ideas about what colors would most become her, Clare rediscovered her love of fashion. Like so many of her enthusiasms, it had been suppressed while she lived in an employer's household. Now it could reemerge, another of those inner chambers opening to the light. She could go riding again, she realized. She needed only a proper mount, and one could surely be found. Her heart beat a little faster at the thought of galloping along the sea cliff and feeling the wind on her face.

When they'd finished, Clare sought out John Pendennis and asked him about the state of their stables. He told her that the building itself was sound, but the only inhabitant was Jamie's horse. The coach dated from Jamie's grandfather's time and had a cracked axle. “We borrow a wagon and team from the home farm for hauling,” the old man informed her. But she had something more sprightly in mind. As they walked back through the gardens, Clare consulted Pendennis about hiring help to restore overgrown beds and cut back a rampant shrubbery. By this time her mind was racing with things to be done and how the result would appear.

Jamie, wrestling with columns of figures in the estate office, heard them when they passed under the window and felt a spurt of resentment. He knew he'd told her to do whatever she liked with the house. He ought to be grateful for her energy, as well as her money, he supposed. But hearing Clare issuing orders to his old retainer, he felt suddenly constricted. Signing the marriage agreement, he hadn't imagined this sort of scene, and it felt as if he'd given up a larger measure of control than he'd bargained for. Oh, Clare would consult him. He could contradict her, and she would listen. They might not even disagree, in many instances. But, except out on the land, he couldn't form schemes of his own and simply order them done. He had to ask his wife. Call it what you will, it came down to that. He had to go, hat in hand, and beg for permission. It rankled far more than he'd realized it would when he'd been desperate to save his heritage.

***

The conversation at dinner that evening was carried on mainly between Clare and Selina, discussing a shopping expedition to Penzance. Jamie found they'd already sent down to the village and hired a carriage to take them. And why shouldn't they? He had no objections to proffer. He had no right to expect that he would have been consulted. And so he kept his own counsel, sipping from another bottle of his grandfather's wine. When asked, he advised them on where to go to make various sorts of purchases, but he did not otherwise join the discussion.

Clare purposefully did not include Tamsyn and Tegan in the talk, though she observed their reactions sidelong. The way the twins listened to their plans gave her hope for a scheme she was hatching. By the end of the meal, she was confident it would work.

She was taking hold, she thought. She was ticking items off her lists, getting things done. Sitting in the solar that evening, joining Selina in some mending, Clare felt a satisfying sense of accomplishment. It buoyed her up until she climbed the stairs to bed and sat alone before her dressing table.

There was no sound from the room next door. Jamie had said that he was going to work in the estate office after dinner, and she didn't know if he was still there or just a wall away. Their one night together seemed to have receded in time, until it felt like far more than two days ago. It had become almost like a dream. Softly, Clare rose and walked over to the connecting door. She listened more closely and still heard nothing. She could turn the knob and go through. He was her husband. He had stepped over this threshold without hesitation. Clare flushed at the memory of that night. A part of her yearned for his touch, the fire of his lips on hers. But their exchanges since then had been so mundane, so terse. Tonight, Jamie had seemed as distant as a stranger. So, although her hand remained on the doorknob for several minutes, Clare couldn't quite bring herself to turn it.