Wicked and Wonderful (31 page)

Margaret chuckled. “Oh, Judy, how I am going to miss ye. I can hardly bear to think on it, I am that sad.”

Judith sipped the tea. “Of what are you speaking? I am continuing on with the troupe.” She knew at least this much, that she had a responsibility to the troupe and would not think of abandoning them now, particularly since their principal actor was gone. “I thought I made myself very clear on that subject last night.”

Margaret shook her head and sighed. “I were hoping ye discovered by now how wrong ye were. Ye should have gone with Kelthorne and his sisters. They were willing.”

“But I was not, not under such circumstances. Can you not understand as much?” She wished they were not discussing the matter now. Her stomach felt queasy even with the warm tea.

“Nay, I do not understand. Ye love him and he loves ye. Wat more is there to consider?”

“Only the future. If he could not even bear to pass an hour or two in the company of all of you, how will he ever properly manage how I have lived since I was fourteen? No, Margaret, in this I know I am right and his conduct proved it to me last night. I am for Devonshire.”

Margaret frowned as though trying to make her out. “Very well. I see that ye are not to be moved. John wished me to tell ye that the wagons will be ready in no more than an hour.”

Judith nodded and surrounded the cup with both her hands, sipping deeply once more. As Margaret rose and turned to go, Judith said, “Thank you, Margaret.”

“Fer the tea? O’ course.”

Judith shook her head. “Not for the tea, though I am grateful for that, but for your friendship and kindness to me. No sweeter soul exists on earth than yours.”

Margaret smiled a watery smile. “And thank ye fer believing in me. ‘Tis changed m’life, as ye very well know.” She quit the tent but Judith had one last glimpse of her swiping at a damp cheek just before she called out to her daughter, “Shelly, get off Horace’s back. He’s trying to tie up the goat.”

*** *** ***

“‘Tis my fault,” Mary said.

“No, dearest, ‘tis all mine,” Amy countered. “I am to blame. I should have insisted upon a cup of punch. And did not the bowl smell heavenly? But that is quite beside the point.”

Mary turned in Kelthorne’s direction and scowled at him. Watching her, in some amusement, he thought she appeared to be about twelve instead of five and thirty, the wife of a peer and the mother of eight hopeful children. He found he was rather astonished by both his sisters, something he rarely was. “Well,” she continued, “we are at least settled on this, Amy, that you and I both should have accepted so civil an offer of rum punch.”

“I think you are both being ridiculous,” Kelthorne countered. Rufus looked up at him. He was seated beside his master, his head draped over the toe of his boot. Kelthorne leaned down to rub his ears.

They were seated in the drawing room, only the three of them present. Lord Radsbury had gone to London on business as was expected of him and Mr. Newnott and Mr. Emborough were off hunting. Miss Banwell and Miss Upton were practicing a new ballad in the small music room while Miss Currivard and Laurence had taken, as was their habit, to walking about on the hilltop garden. Mr. Currivard was due to arrive in a fortnight’s time to meet his prospective son-in-law. Laurence was understandably nervous about the forthcoming encounter, but he had never been happier. How odd to think that love had found them both in Somerset.

A sennight had passed since the troupe had quit Portislow. The vale had begun to slumber once more. The apples in the orchard grew riper with each passing day. Every once in a while sunlight sparkled on the leaves in just such a manner as to hint of autumn.

For his part, Kelthorne had never known such lowness of spirit in his entire life. The night of Stolford’s injury he had needed Judith to choose yet he still did not comprehend why. He had forced the matter and that just following a time when she had barely recovered from the abduction. He wondered, as he had several times since, what would have happened had he not pressed the issue, had he—as his sisters were so markedly regretting—taken a cup of punch with the acting troupe.

Yet, he could not shake the wretched feeling of ill-usage and a piercing jealousy, which had attacked him in that moment, upon seeing her while clothed in but her nightdress being embraced by every man of the troupe.

“Aubrey,” Mary said suddenly, sitting up very straight. “You are not fearful of her innocence, are you?”

He met her gaze and shook his head. “No,” he stated simply.

“Then what is it?”

He rose abruptly and began pacing the chamber. “She was in her nightdress for everyone to see,” he said sharply, throwing an arm wide. “And this was to be my wife?”

When he turned to face his sisters, he saw that they were staring at each other in consternation. He thought they understood now why he had been, and continued to be, so adamant about not following after Judith, begging her forgiveness for his snobbery, and bringing her back to Portislow. However, they soon began to smile and then to laugh. Finally, they were in such hysterics that he grew angry.

“What the deuce is so very funny about that. She was in her nightdress and all the men of the troupe were gawking at her as well as the servants in the inn. And you expect me to marry such a female?” His words, however, merely served to cause them both to laugh harder still until tears flowed down Amy’s cheeks and Mary’s face had turned a violent shade of red.

He was mightily offended that his sufferings had become such a source of amusement to his dear family.

He sat down again, feeling injured and more illused than ever. He refused to even look at them.

They continued to laugh for some time throwing out incomprehensible phrases to one another that would set them off once more at various intervals, things such as, “Imagine...” or “he complains,” or “what great irony.”

When at last their amusement had abated, they moved to stand side-by-side in front of him. Mary made her case quite simple. “What a sapskull you are to think you deserve someone so precious as Judith Pensbury when, given your quite sordid career, you would complain of Miss Pensbury in her nightdress. You are a hypocrite, Aubrey, and I wash my hands of you.”

“As do I,” Amy said. “I could bear all the gossip about your adventures in great part because you never pretended to be something you were not. Perhaps I did not always like what you did, but neither did you hold to a moral place in society as Stolford was wont to do. I could not agree more with Mary. You do not deserve her, not by half.”

With that, his sisters retired from the chamber intent on resting before dinner.

Kelthorne stared at the empty doorway for a very long time. He, a hypocrite? How utterly absurd. Judith should have chosen him and not the troupe.

The simple question ‘Why?’ posed itself in his mind. He rose from his seat and moved to stare out the window, at the empty vale below. Clouds had moved in from the west and only a faint line of blue deep on the horizon showed how fair the weather had been. A rumbling in the distance bespoke rain.

He tried to imagine the camp and how resistant the tents were to rain, how difficult the daily routines would quickly become, how Mrs. Marnhull would have Horace set up an awning to protect her precious bread and, at this hour, the meal she was undoubtedly preparing. He wondered what Judith was doing, sewing in her tent or perhaps teaching Shelly her letters or practicing a new ballad with Mrs. Ash.

He sighed heavily. So, why was it she should have come with him?

Lightning flashed and with it came an odd understanding of what had really happened a sennight ago. He had been frightened of her past, afraid that she might actually have been right, that once they were married, there would be endless gossip about her years with the troupe, and he truly did not know whether he could have born the relentless gabblemongering. Good God, he had been the worst of cowards in that moment. Instead of standing by her, he had all but told her that she was unworthy to be his wife.

He felt sick with remorse. His sisters had been right to laugh at him and to wash their hands of him. In his fear, he had wanted her to prove, quite irrationally, that she was worthy of him by doing what? By abandoning a group of people, especially John and Margaret, who had taken her in, given her a home and protected her for so many years.

Mary had been right. He had been a sapskull.

The wind began to whip the countryside, the usual frenzy just before a hard rain. A moment more, the first raindrops tapped on the window.

He stared into the countryside, in a southerly direction toward Devonshire. He had no intention of letting such absurd fears have command of him. He determined in this moment to spend the rest of his life, if need be, proving that he had been very wrong to have so deserted her.

His gaze traveled to the west and in an instant, he knew precisely what he wanted to do to begin atoning for his misdeeds.

Chapter Fifteen

Judith stared at Kelthorne thinking she must be seeing a ghost. A full fortnight had passed since he had left her at the inn in Langport. He stood in the doorway of her tent an odd light in his eye. She could hardly catch her breath. What did he mean by coming? She thought she had made her intentions, her loyalties perfectly clear.

“Why have you come?” she asked. “No, do not give me answer. I do not wish to hear anything you have to say. Besides, I cannot speak with you for I am to perform very shortly.” If only he did not appear to such extreme advantage in his coat of blue superfine and his shirt points angled across his fine cheeks just so. She experienced the strongest most inexplicable urge to touch his hair, which just barely brushed the collar of his coat. She gave herself a shake.

“Indeed, I cannot imagine why you have come, and I do wish you would leave my tent on the instant.”

“I shan’t do so and you know very well why I have come.”

“I do not.”

He crossed the very small space separating them and took her in his arms quite roughly, forcing all the air from her lungs. Drawing air in proved wretchedly difficult since he was looking at her in such a way. She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed, but he did not give way. “You should desist at once,” she said, but her accents were pathetically weak. How would he ever believe her if she did not address him with greater spirit?

He shook his head and then he kissed her.

Judith withheld the enjoyment of the experience for about half a minute and then it was as though her body were made of butter and she simply melted against him. He kissed her quite deeply in response which served to remove any sensation whatsoever from the bottom of her feet. Her arms, quite traitorously, encircled his neck and she became lost. Even more profoundly, however, was that the dull stone that had become her heart since she had sipped the rum punch over a fortnight past had become quite instantly replaced with a feather.

How she loved him.

He drew back. “My darling, you must come back to Portislow with me. I need you so.”

“But you left me in Langport.”

“I was a fool. I should have had punch with you, my sisters as well. They have told me repeatedly how they should have pressed me to do so and now I have come to you to beg your forgiveness.”

“This is madness,” she said, but she was clinging to him now as though her life depended upon remaining within the circle of his embrace.

“The most beautiful sort of madness.”

“Oh, do not say such wicked things to me. Do you know how you tempt my heart?”

“I wish to tempt much more than your heart, my darling,”

“What a scandalous thing to say,” she said. How she delighted in him.

“Ah, but you have mistook my meaning, dearest, though now that I think on it, I rather like your interpretation. However, I was thinking more of your place beside me in my home and in London. I intend to take my responsibilities seriously in the House of Lords and I will need an accomplished bride beside me, a songstress in this case to charm my enemies in our drawing room.”

“You are being abominably absurd,” she whispered. She kissed him. She loved what he was saying to her, giving her a hope that was not a hope at all.

“Marry me,” he said softly against her lips then kissed her anew.

After a very long moment, indeed, she said, “I cannot. You know I cannot.”

“Are you very certain, indeed?”

“Aye,” she whispered.

He drew back. “Well, I thought you would say as much, so I have brought someone with me who I hope will persuade you.”

Judith sighed as he released her. She could well withstand his sisters or even Miss Currivard and Mr. Doulting. However, when an entirely new face appeared at the opening of her tent, one that seemed both familiar yet not, she gasped. “Uncle,” she said.

He had tears in his eyes and spread his arms wide. “Why did you not come to me? All these years, my dearest niece, I could have protected you.”

Judith found herself in a strong embrace and tears she had withheld for a very long time flooded her face. She held him fast, entirely overcome with so many thoughts and feelings that for a very long time she could not speak. She met Kelthorne’s gaze over her uncle’s shoulder and murmured her thanks. He stepped from the tent and let the canvas door fall for privacy.

When at last Judith was able to draw away from him, she sought her kerchief, mopped her face and blew her nose soundly. She realized that she was not the only one making serious use of a kerchief

“Oh dear, oh dear,” her uncle Pensbury said. “To think I am looking at you now. Kelthorne told me of Stolford but why did you run away? I could have protected you.”

She shook her head. “You do not understand how determined he was. I made my way to your house but Stolford had anticipated me. His coach was in your drive. I waited for days, but there was always one of his servants about. I knew I was not safe. Everyone underestimated his determination except my governess. She knew what he was. She helped me to escape my father’s house and then she took a ship to the colonies.”

Her uncle seemed unbearably sad. “I wish that I could dispute you, but when I recall that first year of your disappearance, Stolford was never far from my home. Perhaps you are right, but this existence for my poor niece—”