Marjorie Farrell (22 page)

“Of course,” replied the marchioness matter-of-factly, trying not to smile. “But you must see that what is between you is not merely antagonism. There must have been something else, or I know that Gareth would not have married you.”

“Well, I am willing to admit the possibility. But it is too late now for me to do anything about it.”

“I will not give you that old saw, ‘It is never too late,’ for sometimes it is. But I do ask you to consider the possibility that Gareth married you because he found you an attractive woman, one with whom he hoped to build a happy, if not passionate marriage. I am speaking only logically after all, my dear.”

“I follow your arguments, Lady Thorne, and they do make a certain kind of sense. I will think about them a bit more, but fear they will only lead me into more unhappiness. It is far worse to have ruined one’s possibility for happiness than to believe there was none there at all.”

“You could try speaking to Gareth.”

“Never,” replied Arden. “I still have some pride and I cannot open myself to mockery and humiliation.” Arden’s face, which had softened during the conversation, became harder, and Lady Thorne thought she could see what had earned Arden her title.

“Well, I will not push you, my dear. I wish you well and will hope against hope that something will change in all this.”

They heard the door open and close and the butler entered and announced that the marquess was almost ready to leave.

“I must just wash up and fix my hair,” said Arden. “Tell him I will be down directly,” she said, and ran upstairs.

* * * *

They left in a flurry. Gareth hugged his aunt quickly, and when Arden reached out her hand, she found herself pulled into a fierce embrace.

Gareth had chosen to ride for the first part of their journey, and so she climbed into the carriage alone, happy to have some privacy, for she was close to tears. She peered out and waved to the dowager marchioness who watched them down the drive. Lady Tremayne was praying that the seed she had planted in Arden’s mind had not fallen by the wayside or on the rocks of pride, but would take root and grow, one day leading Arden to let go of her pride and come home to her husband to admit her love.

The separate conversations they each had had with Lady Thorne made Arden and Gareth feel even more uncomfortable with each other. Gareth spent most of the trip on horseback, while Arden attempted to sleep away her misery. They managed to get separate rooms most evenings, although at one inn they were forced to share. That night, Arden excused herself right after dinner and Gareth wandered into the taproom. By the time he got upstairs, Arden was asleep and he was a little drunk. He fell into a deep sleep almost immediately, so there were no moments of frustrated desire. The brandy worked just as he had intended it to.

When they reached Stalbridge, the servants did a good job of hiding their surprise and curiosity. Arden knew that there would be nonstop gossip belowstairs that night and most likely for days to come, but, as a separated wife, she would have to get used to being talked about behind her back. Although her heart would hurt most, she was soon aware that her pride was intact enough to be capable of being wounded. How the
ton
would enjoy talking about how the Insufferable got her comeuppance at last.

They had arrived in late afternoon, and Arden insisted that Gareth stay for two nights so he would be rested for the trip back. They stayed out of each other’s way, however, and only spoke politely at meals.

* * * *

The morning Gareth was to leave, the breakfast table was more than usually tense. Neither had anything to say to one another, because both were afraid if they said anything it would lead to saying everything. Arden tried not to look at her husband, but found herself gazing upon his face when he was preoccupied with his breakfast. In all likelihood, she would not see him again. This might have been one of many mornings together had she been a different person. But she was who she was: still behind her hedge of briars. She was aware of it now, but it had not gone away and Gareth would never come looking for her. In fact, it was unlikely he cared where she was at all.

Once or twice, Gareth felt Arden’s gaze, but when he looked up, she was buttering a muffin or stirring her tea, and he decided he must have imagined it. He wondered what she would do with herself at Stalbridge now that Celia and Ellen were gone. Look for a companion, most likely. Learn how to run the household? Visit neighbors? He knew that gossip would follow her everywhere, and he was all at once sorry that he was abandoning her to what were sure to be malicious tongues. As a man, he was in the better position. Neither of them could remarry, of course, but society, should he choose to enter it, would not be as hard on him as on the abandoned wife. Well, it was her choice, after all, thought Gareth. I was very willing to make the marriage work. And I’m the only one whose heart has been bruised.

* * * *

Gareth had chosen to send the carriage back with the groom and ride to Yorkshire. Arden stood on the steps with him, waiting for his horse to be brought around. As they heard the sound of his hooves and the jingle of the bridle, they turned to one another.

“Arden, I am sorry for whatever pain your father and I caused you by forcing you into this marriage. The price you would pay for an annulment is too high, but I wish you to know that I would not think ill of you if you eventually sought the company of another man. Liaisons are not uncommon in situations like ours.” He said the last words stiffly, although he meant them to be rational and generous. As soon as they were out of his mouth, however, he knew he didn’t mean them at all. If he ever saw anyone else with his wife, he realized he would be ready to kill them both.

Arden could hear the sincerity in her husband’s voice as he began his apology and was relieved to think he had some feeling for her, when his subsequent words stung her. She kept her temper, however, and answered him in kind, as though she were discussing the weather with a stranger, and not granting her husband permission to take a mistress.

Gareth mounted quickly and was off without a backward glance. Arden desperately willed him to look back. If he looked back, even for a second, she would run down the drive and fling herself into his arms, begging him not to leave her. If he looked back, she could at least wave to him. If he would only look back, damn the man, she could turn her back and he would know that his departure bothered her not a whit.

She stood and watched him get smaller and smaller. It felt like hours. But only moments later, the housekeeper summoned her with a small domestic problem, and she was pulled into what was to be her new life.

* * * *

For the first two weeks at Stalbridge, Arden was kept busy. Both the housekeeper and the estate manager had been working all summer without the light but expert guidance of Mrs. Denbeigh. While they were both exceedingly competent, they did like to check in with her on certain problems, such as whether to dismiss the downstairs maid who had been carrying on with one of the tenant farmers and was increasing. The tenant wanted to marry her, but the young couple could use the income from her position and it was unusual for servants to be married. The old Arden most likely would have had the girl dismissed and thrown off the estate to provide an example to other reckless couples. Neither the agent nor the housekeeper had much hope, but to their great surprise, Arden asked to see Molly alone before she made her decision. She questioned the girl as gently as she could, but even so, Molly was shaking as she stood in front of her mistress.

“Before I give my permission for this marriage, Molly, I want to be sure that you really want it, that you are not just marrying Mr. Baine for appearance’s sake.”

The girl’s eyes widened in surprise and she stopped shaking. “I do care for him, my lady. But we need the money from my work here. I’d give the baby to my mum to care for, and if I could, stay on, married or unmarried.”

“And be standing here next year increasing again?”

Molly blushed. “We do have a hard time staying away from each other, my lady.”

Arden found herself envying the parlormaid. She had let nothing keep her from the man she loved. But then, the man she loved had loved her.

“I think it better to marry than to burn, as Saint Paul says,” Arden said with her own dryness. Molly looked at her blankly. In a softer voice, Arden reassured her. “You have my permission both to marry your farmer and to come back as upstairs maid after the baby is born.”

“Oh, thank you, my lady. We never thought you would give us permission, you being so…” Molly stopped midsentence, resizing that she did not want to reveal their opinion of the Lady Arden.

“I understand what it is to love someone and want to be with him, Molly.”

“Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady.” Molly curtsied her way out, not wanting to trust her tongue. She threw a shawl over her shoulders and hurried off to tell her Tom of their luck, wondering, as she walked, who was the “someone” Lady Arden loved, for it did not seem to be that good-looking husband of hers, or why would she be back here alone? Whoever it was, he had made Arden more human, and Molly was thankful for that.

* * * *

Arden hoped that any other problems that came up involved only the rotation of crops or what to serve for dinner. But, of course, the manager and housekeeper were so efficient that easy dilemmas were resolved without her help. And so she found herself faced with the situations where the decision she made would affect people’s lives. She found that her first response was a critical one. The old Arden had not gone away. She could be the judgmental bystander as much as ever. But she kept her immediate judgments to herself. Then she would try to listen again, this time with her heart. It was not easy, because her first reaction had always been, and most likely always would be, dismissive. That feeling of being outside the everyday human scene and , therefore, superior to it seemed to be a part of who she was, but now, at least, she knew that it was not all of her. Eventually, the critical, superior voice got tired, ran out of witticisms and judgments, and she was able to enter into the problems of the people she was responsible for.

Sometimes her tongue got the better of her. But she was usually able to rein it in before it did too much damage. And when she wasn’t using it as a weapon, her ability to sum up a person was very useful. Many of her comments had more than a grain of truth in them and gave her a certain objectivity.

By the end of a few weeks, she had managed to resolve most of the problems that had been accumulating all summer, both to her satisfaction and to her servants’ amazement. Her decisions had been firm but merciful and a few of them unexpectedly kind. Her household agreed that even the earl could not have done better. And in the case of Molly, being a man, the earl might have done worse!

* * * *

Once the most pressing dilemmas had been resolved, however, and the house and the estate continued to run smoothly, Arden found herself missing Yorkshire more and more. She felt stifled in Sussex, and although she knew and loved every tree and brook and gate on the estate, she missed Richmond House. She would not open her heart further than that, for she knew if she admitted to herself how much she missed Gareth, the pain would be too great. So she would only let herself think of the dales and Janie, and the moment her husband’s figure appeared in her daydreams, she would turn him into Jake or Gabriel Crabtree.

Every time the post arrived, however, she would hope against hope that he had written, confessing his love and calling her back. She had not written to him, but she had written to Celia and Ellen, telling them of her return, describing it as a temporary visit to Stalbridge to take care of pressing business, and explained Gareth’s absence by saying how busy he was getting acquainted with Thorne.

Three weeks after she had returned home, there was a letter from Celia. The sight of her cousin’s familiar handwriting brought tears to Arden’s eyes, for the only three people who really loved her were far away and her loneliness deeper than she had realized.

Celia chattered about Lord Heronwood, how kind his family was and their almost completed preparations for their wedding in October. “When you have completed your business at Stalbridge,” Celia concluded, “perhaps you would consider a visit to us on your way back to Yorkshire?”

Arden was torn between her desire to be with Ellen and Celia and her doubt that she could keep the separation a secret from their sympathetic ears. There was also the matter of Lord Heronwood. After the betrothal, Arden and he had managed to be painfully polite to one another, but there had been an embarrassed constraint on both sides. Certainly he would know about Celia’s invitation, but Arden could not imagine that he would be disappointed if she refused it. And his family could have nothing but feelings of hostility toward her.

And they would be expecting her to be continuing north. Although, since no one was likely to follow her, she supposed she could practice a small deception and only give the appearance of turning toward Yorkshire. After the wedding, she intended to tell her family, but she had no wish to put a damper on their celebration beforehand. After the wedding, she hoped she could convince Ellen to return to Stalbridge for at least part of the year. Surely her aunt could not refuse her under the circumstances?

After two days of going back and forth, Arden’s loneliness finally got the better of her. She sent off a short acceptance note and began her preparations.

It was twelve hours to Heronwood, but with an early start, Arden knew they could be there by suppertime. After an early departure and only a short stop for a light nuncheon and to change horses, they reached Heronwood just before six in the evening.

Arden was barely announced when her Aunt Ellen almost ran down the stairs to greet her. After a warm hug, she stepped back and said, “Let me look at you, now that you have been a married woman all this time.” Arden tried to look calm and content and presumably succeeded, since her aunt pulled her into another embrace.