False Angel (13 page)

But now she frowned, and her lower lip began to jut out, and she said peevishly, “Well, of course I shall tell them. I must, Joss. For they want to be sure I’ve done everything right so that you won’t be angry with me. Now you must come into bed with me, or they’ll think I’ve been a naughty girl. They told me what you must do,” she said sadly, “and they said that while you are at it, I mustn’t mind. I must only think of all the good things that they will give me if I behave while you do it. And then,” she said, brightening, “I shall have a new white kitten when we get home. Just like Puffin. Do you remember Puffin, Joss?” she asked eagerly. “He grew up and then he began to scratch up all of Mama’s chairs, so he was sent to the bam. But I shall have a new one if they are pleased with me.”

He remembered Puffin. Suddenly he also remembered that each time that they had met, she had been very shy of speech, only asking him innocent questions, to which he had been pleased to reply endlessly, to all her family’s approval. And when he had coaxed her to talk, it had indeed been about Puffin, or her singing bird, or her new musical box. He had thought her as unspoiled and ingenuous as a child. Now he only sat and stared at her, and hoped against all hope that he would soon see a twinkle come into her eye, or her lips quiver at the jest that had become too rich to contain a moment longer.

“But Sylvia,” he said softly, “we scarcely know each other. And if we are successful this night, there is every possibility that we might become parents by spring. I scarcely think it right that you take on the duties of mama before you property know the babe’s papa.”

He smiled at her then, a gentle smile of sweet reason which softened his stern face and had always won him hearts in his past. But the smile slowly slid off his lips as she said, with just as much sweet reason,

“Oh Joss, I know that we may get a baby. We’re married, silly, and married people get babies from the good angels. But babies are very pretty and you can dress them up like dolls. Anyway, Nurse will take care of them, she promised. And I was promised a white kitten if I lie very still for you tonight. And I promise I won’t cry if it’s nasty or if you hurt me. I shall name it Snowy, for Papa named Puffin and I didn’t like that name at all.”

He promised her a kitten. In the end, after speaking with her until her eyelids grew heavy and the fire in the grate died down, he understood it was no joke, he realized there was nothing amusing in it at all. Then he promised her a white kitten, and a singing bird that you could wind up, and a new doll to take the place of the baby that he would never give her. All so that she would not cry. For she was, just as he had thought, a very sweet, ingenuous child. And always had been, and always would be.

It had been the raging fever when she was five, her papa told him as he paced and blustered in his study after Joscelin had returned her to him. They had almost lost her then, and were grateful even when they eventually discovered that though she had held on to her life, she’d lost the ability to ever grow any older in her mind.

They had never thought to tell anyone, but then, the duke had cried, wheeling about red-faced and angry to confront his new son-in-law, they had never lied about it either, had they? And there were worse things, he said, downing another brandy, than having such a biddable wife. And he’d had a chance to see for himself, hadn’t he?

And
they’d
all grown used to it, and loved her so much that they honestly hadn’t seen any problem. And, he muttered eventually, as much to himself as to the back of the young man who strode from his house, she was their only child, their only chance at posterity.

His own father had only grown very silent, and said, “Are you quite sure, Joss?”

“Yes, Father,” he replied, and then, because he knew no other road but obedience to his parent, he said, while all his soul writhed, “I’m sorry. I expect I shouldn’t have flown off like that. I’d no right to burden you with it. I’ll go back with her, sir, but I won’t, I cannot have children with her. I know that Burlington is right, and that she’ll throw true and have normal babes, but I will not father them. I’ll not get a child with child. I’m sorry, sir, but that I cannot do.”

But all his father had done was to throw him a startled look and say, “Don’t be a fool, Joss.” Then he had ordered up his horse and had traveled to see his old friend, alone.

When he returned, he called his son to his study and told him of the divorce proceedings that would be set into motion.

“But the scandal, sir!” Joss had said, aghast at how casually his proud father was proposing that the family’s good name be irrevocably stained.

“The name is nothing against your life,” the duke said sternly. And during the next weeks and months and years, as the case dragged on, and more palms opened for more funds, and more mouths opened for more gossip, Joss came to understand that whatever else he had wrongly judged, at least he had not erred in his attempt to please his parent. For his father would not allow him to sacrifice himself on society’s high altar. So his father-in-law was persuaded, by means Joscelin never discovered, to allow the dissolution of the marriage to go forth. But one sacrifice Joss insisted on, for his own honor’s sake.

A writ of
A Vinculo Matrimoni
was filed for in his wife’s name. And so that she would never have to testify, the Marquess of Severne swore before God and his peers that she was yet a virgin because he himself was impotent when he married her. Which was not precisely perjury, he told himself, for on that one night, at least, it had in a sense been true. Whatever it cost him to avow such a thing publicly, at least in this fashion she might have a chance, to wed again. For she was, withal, undeniably a sweet child.

Of course, it made his life difficult. So difficult in fact, that he left his home for the grand tour, after all. Only this tour was arranged by a spymaster. And it may well have saved his life. For it is no easy thing for a young man to attempt to prove repeatedly to a sniggering world that he was, whatever else he had claimed in courts of law, yet a whole man.

Even taking into account his extreme youth, the Marquess of Severne did not want to remember a great many things he had done during that time of his life. But he would never forget what the Viscount Talwin told him he thought of his actions the morning they had first met As the older man persuaded him to drink his fifth cup of strong coffee, he had mused, looking about the parlor of the brothel where Joscelin spent so much time that he could almost be said to have taken up lodgings there, that he considered the marquess’s way of life “... a valiant, amusing, but foolishly slow form of suicide.” And just as Joscelin had begun smiling at the jest, Talwin had taken a pistol and laid it on the table by his cup.

“If you wish to do a clean job of it, so that your loved ones’ mourning will be over and done with sooner, you may avail yourself of this,” he had said, and as the shocked young man gazed at him, he had gone on casually, “but it seems a waste. Now, if you don’t mind risking your life, I might have a need of you. But only if you care to gamble with your life. Not, I repeat,
never,
if you only wish to lose it I have placed a neat suicide within your grasp with my pistol. But I offer you only the possibility of death, as well as honor, if you choose to live, and work with me.”

Talwin had saved his life by giving it meaning, and now the gentleman he owed so much had a daughter who requested an immediate reply as to whether or no he would attend her ball as his guest. She was a female who would have caught his eye if her father had been the dustman. She had such pure physical beauty she made him eager as a boy to touch her, and her wit, spirit, and style delighted him as a man. She had attracted him so completely that he had been glad of the excuse her father gave him to leave Town on some trifling business before he committed the unpardonable crime of trying to attach her.

He’d borne the viscount no malice, even as he’d obeyed him, shrugged, sighed, and packed his bags. However much he may have desired furthering his interest with the lady, he could scarcely blame her father for placing her immediately beyond his reach. Because, of course, he knew that a divorced man was not a fit suitor for a decent, well-born young woman.

But was she so very decent, the marquess wondered? There had been that strange wildness that had forced her home her first Season. And that protracted stay in the countryside. Most peculiarly of all, it seemed that her father countenanced their continued relationship. For when he’d returned to Town, he had only mentioned Leonora once to her father, to end his own doubt, so that it could be out in the open and he could be warned away from her once and for all. But the viscount had only said, “Yes. We’re giving a ball for her soon. She’ll want you to attend, and I tell you, Joss, I should like to have you come as well. She’s a determined young woman with her own mind. But in this case, lad, I think you should know that I shouldn’t mind if she had you in mind.”

But why should he not mind? the marquess thought, studying the invitation again, as though those simple, formal words might hold the answer for him. Did they think, for some reason he didn’t know, that she could not do better for herself? Lord knew he didn’t look for perfection in a female, as he didn’t believe it existed in the human condition, and he certainly could not offer it in himself. But it had been his bad fortune that every female he had involved himself with, from his child bride to his cheats of mistresses, had been disastrously flawed. Still, with all his dark misgivings, he couldn’t find the flaw in Lady Leonora ... no ... he couldn’t perceive the flaw in Nell, he corrected himself with a smile. For he admired her entirely.

So when he at last looked up at his butler to give him a reply, he was grinning widely. He’d decided that for once, for this one time, he would believe again, despite all the good reasons why he knew he should not. Because he had discovered that he needed to believe again. Just as her father had given him a new cause for his life those years ago, now again, when he required it the most, another member of the viscount’s family was gifting him with new hope for his future.

“I’ll pen an instant reply,” the marquess said, rising and going to his writing desk. As he wrote, he smiled to himself at the light phrasing he used, thinking of how she would appreciate it, and when he handed the note to Wilkins, he said, “Give this to the fellow, and a few pieces of silver as well. It can’t have been pleasant, coming out on such a grim day, but he’s lightened mine so much he deserves a reward.”

Wilkins hesitated, and then said, “I shall give the note to the young woman, my lord. But I don’t believe we ought to offer her money for her pains. I don’t,” he continued reprovingly, “consider it fitting.”

“What young woman?” Joss said angrily, for one wild moment thinking that it might be Nell herself, out on some spree.

So when he first saw the drenched young female standing, shivering and dripping, in his hall, he felt a queer relief that it was not Nell, that she was not so abandoned as to take leave of her senses and defy society again. If she had done so, then she would have given the lie to all that he was beginning to feel for her and think of her. Were she to act the madcap sensation seeker now, she’d become just another example of his wretchedly mistaken notions of those of her sex. His relief, however, was short-lived.

“Why it’s Lady Leonora’s companion ... cousin,” Joss said at once. “Whatever are you doing here ... Miss...”

“Greyling, Annabelle Greyling,” the girl said through chattering teeth. “But my cousin insisted that you receive this note without delay. And you mustn’t blame her, for it wasn’t actually raining too hard when I left the house.”

“By God, girl, where were your wits?” the marquess demanded after he sent his butler for a towel. “Why didn’t you let the driver deliver it?” he asked angrily.

“Why,” she said as if amazed at his question, “there wasn’t one. It is not for someone like me to dare order up the coach. I walked, of course.”

He stared at her and then asked with barely suppressed irritation, “Why not just hand the note to a footman in any case? That’s what they’re paid for.”

She hung her sodden head and said softly, regretfully, “But my lord, that is what I am paid for as well, in a manner of speaking. For I’m only a poor relation, and it’s very kind of my relatives to take me in, so I must do my best to please my cousin.”

He looked down at that white, drowned face, and held in a sigh for foolish young women who overdo good deeds.

“I’m sure she didn’t need you to perform tasks that are man’s work,” he said as he watched the puddle widen about her feet. The girl was drenched. Her dress clung to her body in a fashion that might have been lascivious if it weren’t so pitiable. The thin wet white muslin outlined her small high breasts, their nipples pointed and prominent from the cold, and beneath them he could see her ribs, and lower still the spiraling spiky curls of her pubic patch between her sharp pelvic bones was clearly delineated. But she was such a beaten, starveling thing that nothing but his pity was aroused for her. He gave a sound of annoyance and did not wait for Wilkins, who for all he knew was ironing the towel before he considered it fit to bring to his master. Instead, he threw one of his own capes over the shuddering girl.

“She said she wished the note to be delivered,” the girl said softly, gazing up at him with fright in her wide, pale eyes now. “And there were no footmen available. I have learned not to disagree. Please your lordship,” she said urgently, “just give me an answer to bring to her, and disregard the rest. Oh please,” she asked on a rising note of fear.