A Virtuous Lady (24 page)

"Briony," he said at last when he had mastered his temper, "I wish you would refrain from stirring up the embers of my lamentable past. It has nothing to say to the present. I may have raised a few eyebrows in my time but my conduct was never, well, scandalous." He favored her with a knowing smile. "Even you, madam wife, have sailed close to the wind on the odd occasion. Furthermore, I take great exception to being called a 'womanizer.' Acquit me of that charge at least." Here his lordship hesitated and chose his next words with care. "I have never yet had a woman in my keeping. I see that surprises you—but it is the truth, I swear it, Briony. You were the only woman for whom I ever cared enough to offer—well, that part of our courtship is best forgotten. I made a cake of myself, and I beg your forgiveness. I wish to be completely honest with you, you see. I admit that I have sown a few wild oats in my time, but no more than other men. What I lacked was discretion."
Briony's
silence and impassive stance goaded him to a more passionate declaration. "Good God, Briony, the fact that I have chosen to bind myself to one woman irrevocably should prove
something
to you!"

Her eyes registered surprise. "This marriage, as I recall, was thrust upon us. You never had any intention of making me your wife. The facts of the case are that I inadvertently compromised you, for which I am truly sorry, Ravensworth. It is I who should be begging your pardon."

Ravensworth's conscience troubled him greatly. "Briony . .
.my
dear. . ." he began haltingly, "I have been meaning to talk to you about the circumstances of our marriage." He chanced to look deeply into his wife's clear-eyed expression and his good intentions evaporated. How could he tell this innocent girl that he had deliberately engineered their marriage? Honesty was the supreme virtue in her eyes. She would despise him for it. He would confess his duplicity when a more propitious moment presented itself, Ravensworth silently promised himself.

"You were saying?" encouraged Briony.
"Something about the circumstances of our marriage?"

Ravensworth recovered himself quickly. "I only meant that, whatever the circumstances of our marriage, I am not sorry to find myself married to you." He captured her grimy hand and spoke in earnest entreaty. "Briony, all I ask is a chance to prove that I can be a husband worthy of your confidence. Can't we call a truce and begin afresh? I will never give you cause to regret that you married me—and that's a promise, word of honor."

This impassioned speech had Briony, quite uncharacteristically, at a loss for words. She was scarcely aware that she nodded her assent. Ravensworth was not slow to take advantage of her hesitation. He tucked her hand confidently into the crook of his arm and escorted her through the remainder of the house, and although she saw a good deal with which she might have reproached him, Briony kept her own counsel. For some reason which was beyond her power to fathom, she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

Oakdale Court was a red-bricked Jacobean edifice of approximately sixty Spacious apartments and extensive outbuildings including a magnificent stable which lay empty except for the eight nags and the one coach which had conveyed them from Bath.
Briony's
taste in architecture and furnishings could not have been more gratified with the solid simplicity of the massive Jacobean fireplaces and the open- beamed ceilings. The new mistress of Oakdale Court esteemed simplicity and comfort above all things.

Simplicity of style, notwithstanding the size of the house, she had in good measure. Briony was not immune to the beauty of the pseudo-classical Palladian architecture of Bath and other grand houses around Richmond which she had visited, but there was something more honest, in her opinion, in the unadorned lines of Oakdale Court. It was so thoroughly, unpretentiously English and brought to mind an earlier era of stolid yeoman stock which had made England prosperous and a power to be reckoned with in the world.

Comfort, however, was sadly lacking, and Briony set herself to providing it in abundant measure. Within twenty- four hours of her first tour of the dilapidated house, her small staff of six grooms and two old caretakers, whose days of active service had long since passed, was augmented by an army of retainers whom Ravensworth had miraculously procured. For a moment Briony half believed that Ravensworth had taken her literally and commandeered the British army. Some judicious inquiry, however, set her mind at rest. Every able-bodied man and woman on the estate who was free from other duties had been enticed into service on the promise of a handsome bonus from his lordship if the old mausoleum of a place could be set to rights within the month. Poverty is a compelling master. Briony, as Ravensworth had promised, was given her army of minions to do her bidding, and under her able direction, years of neglect along with moldering carpets and
draperies,
were swept away. She was an astute and hard taskmaster, turning away immediately anyone whom she suspected of malingering. In this she merely copied her father's methods of management. There were a few complaints, but those whom the mistress dismissed invariably found employment with the master. That gentleman was found to have a more forgiving disposition.

Night after night during their first week of residence, Briony fell into an exhausted slumber immediately her head touched the pillow of her massive four-poster bed in her solitary chamber. His lordship was not so fortunate, although no less exhausted. He, too, had been doing his part to bring the estate into shape.
Briony's
efforts were confined to the house. Ravensworth had over a thousand acres to oversee and a new agent to break in besides. He had authorized the spending of considerable sums of money in repairs and new machines for the next harvest. As he threw himself into the task of bringing order from the sad neglect which was everywhere in evidence, he was surprised to discover that he had never been happier in his life. A man who had every intention of siring a
quiverful
of strapping sons and one or two girls in the image of their beautiful mama had need of a settled domicile to anchor his life. That Briony was bone weary and too tired to say more than two syllables over dinner every evening was a major obstacle to the fulfillment of his lordship's desires. His patience, never one of his strongest virtues, was beginning to wear thin. As he tossed and turned nightly in his lonely couch, he demanded of himself how much longer he could endure to forgo the pleasures of
Briony's
bed. It would be unjust in her, and therefore quite out of character, to keep him at bay when he had taken such pains to demonstrate that he was serious in his intention of pursuing a more regular, settled way of living. In all conscience, and Briony prided herself on conscience, she must come to see that he had earned his reward.

As was to be expected, their neighbor, Lady Adele, put in an appearance before many days had passed and at the most inopportune moment. Briony, dressed in an old kerseymere smock and a straw bonnet that had seen better days, had set to work with a vengeance, clearing the herb garden of the encroaching weeds. As she hacked, pulled, and dug, heedless of the dabs of mud which clung to her skirts and which somehow had become smeared on her face, she had been delighted to discover that beneath the jungle of rampant foliage a few herbs were flourishing. She had just crushed a sprig of lemon balm in her hands and was inhaling the sweet scent when a group of riders rounded the corner of the house and came toward her. In the lead was her husband, looking, as was his wont, like a tailor's mannequin. Briony eyed him enviously. Such were the benefits of keeping in one's employ a valet whose sole occupation was to ensure that his master was properly turned out. Her
abigail
was the new cook's helper, a raw-boned, ham-fisted woman who was pressed into service only when desperately needed. Briony rarely required her services.

As Ravensworth took in his wife's disreputable appearance, he cantered ahead of his companions and came to a halt a few feet away. Briony straightened and put a hand to her aching back.

"You look like a damned scarecrow," said Ravensworth in a wrathful undertone. "Where are the gardeners? I'll turn them off for dereliction of duty. This is not an occupation fitting for a lady."

"Why did you bring them here?" parried Briony in some irritation, deeply embarrassed to be discovered in such a predicament and by a troop of impeccable fashion plates who looked as if they had just stepped out of a picture by Lawrence. She caught a glimpse of
Adfele
in a black-and-tan riding habit in the high kick of fashion and Briony hastened to conceal her own dowdy weeds behind Ravensworth's mount. Take them to the house. I'll join you directly in the drawing room," she flung at him.

Ravensworth wheeled his mount to do her bidding but the redoubtable Adele was before him. "How do you do, Lady Ravensworth?" she cooed, her omniscient glance sweeping Briony. "Hugh has been quite literally singing your praises. My, my, but you have been a busy little chatelaine since you arrived. Your resourcefulness is most commendable but then I collect I already mentioned that fact to you at Bath?"

"You flatter me, Lady St. Clair," said Briony with as much good humor as she could muster under the circumstances.

"Do I? I don't mean to," said the lady, bending a quizzical look at Ravensworth, who sat impassively upon his mount.

As a Quaker, Briony had been taught to address herself to the good, the divine spark in each individual, but as she looked with dislike at the unlovely beauty
who
was holding her up to ridicule, she came to see the sense in Nanny's Puritan dogma, that man is a worm with no good in him. Her lips parted in preparation of administering a freezing set-down to the overconfident lady, but a quick glance at Ravensworth's troubled expression stayed the words on her lips. She remembered that he had said the world would be eagerly watching her reaction to his former paramour and Briony had no wish to discomfit him before strangers. That pleasure she would reserve for a more private encounter. She stripped her gardening gloves from her fingers and strove for a welcoming expression as she addressed the company in general.

"I bid you welcome. As you see, the new mistress of Oakdale is an avid gardener." She flashed a deprecating smile and moved among them with what she hoped was regal grace as if she had been outfitted in the latest fashion from Paris. "Ravensworth will do the honors while I set myself to rights. I'll arrange for sherry and biscuits to be served in the drawing room. Ah, Lord Grafton, how do you do?" she intoned as she spotted the Earl. Briony had been making her way unobtrusively to the kitchen entrance and with a last, forced smile, disappeared through the door. Once inside, her expression changed to an unbecoming scowl. She ran up the servants' staircase calling for Nell to come and assist her at once. In a matter of minutes she had made herself presentable and changed into a simple gray frock which suited her admirably but was too demure by half to compete with the strikingly handsome ensemble of her rival. Briony had one weapon which she used only rarely, since Ravensworth objected. But this was one occasion, she told herself, which required all her resources. She shook out her hair till it cascaded in waves around her shoulders. The change in her appearance was dramatic. With a last, reassuring glance at the looking glass, she made her way to the drawing room with a becoming smile turning up her lips.

One quick look at Ravensworth's darkening expression informed Briony instantly that her loose tresses did not find favor in his eyes, but since the Countess had cornered him in a private tête-à-tête on a sofa, Briony felt assured of a short respite from her husband's censure. It was left to Grafton to make the introductions to the other members of the party, and Briony noted with some surprise and no little pleasure that they were, with the notable odd exception, all of the first respectability.

The visit lasted only half an hour, as was customary, and as their guests rose to take their leave, Briony directed a few commonplaces to her husband, addressing him by his title as was her habit. The Countess immediately drew the attention of all present to the unexpected formality in
Briony's
address.

"What's this, Hugh?" she asked pertly. "Are you encouraging your little wife to treat you with the deference of a servant? If you call him 'Ravensworth,' my dear," she said to Briony with the appearance of innocence, "you will be the only woman in London who is not on familiar terms with the disreputable rogue."

The comment demanded some kind of response and Briony was highly conscious of the
embarrassed
glances of
not a few of her departing guests. Ravensworth looked as if he had taken root where he stood. She could not very well blurt out the truth and disclose that she still felt very much of a stranger with her new husband and he had never so much as intimated to her that he wished to be addressed by his Christian name. She hung her head and gave Ravensworth a sideways, coquettish grin.

"Oh, I have a pet name for my husband which I use only in private. I scarce like to mention it without his permission.'' She gave him a challenging smile.

"Be my guest," Ravensworth responded with commendable confidence.

"If you say so, Monty, my dear," uttered Briony at her most ingenuous.

Ravensworth's nostrils flared, but he preserved his calm countenance admirably. His arm snaked around
Briony's
waist and he pulled her hard against his side. "Short for Montgomery," said the
Marquess
with well-bred affability.