Marriage of Inconvenience (11 page)

“Those are the Aynsley jewels?” There was astonishment in her voice, and she seemed unable to remove her gaze from the glittering gems set in distinctive designs.

“Yes. They’re yours for a lifetime.”

“My dear man, I do wish you would refrain from speaking of your mortality! I do not like it at all. First it was
when Fordyce inherits
and now it’s this business with the jewels. I daresay if you were not an aristocrat you wouldn’t forever be talking about your demise.”

She was awfully cute with her solicitousness toward him. But he still could not resist pulling her leg a bit. “Don’t worry, my dear wife, I’m sure Fordyce will allow you to live in the dower house with Uncle Ethelbert after I’ve passed on to my great reward.”

She hurled her hair comb at him. “You odious man!”

His eyes sparkling, he picked up the comb and replaced it beside the jewel box. “Seriously, my dear wife, have you decided which jewels you’ll wear to dinner tonight?”

“Oh, my goodness, surely you can’t be serious! I’m to wear something this enormously valuable to dinner with just you, Emily, Peter and Uncle Ethelbert?” She eyed the opened box. “I should think things that precious would be reserved for court presentations or for visits with foreign royalty.”

“I assure you that the countesses of Aynsley have always dressed for dinner in the family jewels.”

“Always?”

He shrugged. “For the past three hundred years.”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you realize in the place where I was born, no men even existed three hundred years ago? Not even a mere two hundred years ago.”

“Then I daresay I shan’t mention that the Comptons came over with the Conqueror. We’ve only been earls three hundred years, but the first baronet goes back much further.”

“How reassuring,” she said facetiously. She began to poke about in the jewel box. “Do you think the diamonds would be too formal?”

“No, but I rather fancied you in rubies. I think they’d be striking with the white gown.”

“Then I trust your judgment. I have no sense of style whatsoever. I daresay when Emily needs a trousseau I shall have to turn her over to Maggie.”

His gaze swept over her. “Did your sister select the gown you’re wearing tonight?”

“Do you like it?”

“I do. It’s elegant.”

“Then, of course, Maggie selected it. I am hopeless when it comes to fashion.”

He chuckled. “That’s all right, love, you have other attributes.” Now why had he gone and called her
love?

She frowned. “Having cataloged Lord Agar’s library is hardly serving me well at Dunton Hall.”

“Your organizational skills will be invaluable. Remember, you’ve been here but three days.” He did not want her to be discouraged. True, his daughter was making things difficult for her. If only Rebecca hadn’t made him promise not to chastise Emily.

He needed to reassure Rebecca. “You do seem to have a keen understanding of lads. I’ve been meaning to compliment you on knowing how thoroughly lads like getting out of their lessons every bit as much as they like to buy comfits.”

“Why, thank you.”

“And they adore stories by Mr. Scott.”

“You must own, even little girls would have to like his stories.”

“True, but not as much as boys.” He reached for the ruby necklace and draped it around her slender neck and bare white shoulders, coming to clasp it at the back of her neck. “What do you think?” He stepped back to gaze at her in the looking glass she faced.

She was spectacular. And the rubies were perfect with the simplicity of her soft white gown. Her sister had done well, too. The scooped bodice of the dress swept up to a pair of tiny puffed sleeves—a perfect frame for the exquisite necklace.

Something must be wrong. She was completely silent. Did she not approve? Good gracious, did her aversion toward aristocrats extend to their family jewels? Then he realized she was dazed, awestruck.

Her mouth dropped open. “Maggie has nothing like this.”

“Warwick’s title is new and did not come with the lands and wealth of the Aynsleys.”

She spun around and faced him. “Pray, John, do you keep the doors locked?”

He rather liked it when she called him John, especially when it came out naturally as it just had. Unforced. It showed a certain level of intimacy he wished to promote. “I don’t think we have to worry about being robbed. If you will notice, the bottom drawer of your dressing table has a lock. Once these jewels are stowed there, that drawer will remain locked at all times. Your maid will always keep one key, and I will stash the other in a safe place. You will, of course, need to convey all of this to your maid.”

She sighed. “Do you think Emily will think me pretentious?”

“Emily is well aware of how the Countess of Aynsley comports herself.”

“How silly of me.”

He proffered a crooked arm. “May I escort my lovely wife to dinner now?”

She stood and faced him, shyly smiling.

On the way downstairs he asked if she’d communicated with the boys that day. “A little. I asked Chuckie’s nurse to let him enjoy the sunshine, but I did not think it right that he enjoy something denied Spencer and Alex. So, of course I had to ask that they be excused from lessons for a half an hour, and of course, I had to make myself go, too. The boys just ran around, but I think they enjoyed it.”

He remembered how much he’d loved being out of doors when he was a lad. How did she comprehend the mind of a lad so very well?

“I must own, I also had an ulterior motive.”

“What, pray tell?”

“I wished to butter them up. You know what tomorrow is?”

He thought for a moment. “The Sabbath?”

“Indeed.”

“I see. You wanted to prepare them.”

She nodded.

“How did they accept the news?”

“They were excited. Perhaps not for the right reasons. I think their excitement was because they find Sundays at Dunton so boring and tedious. At least going into Wey and getting to be around other children is much more appealing than spending the day in quiet pursuits. You must know, Mr. Witherstrum encourages them to read Scripture on Sunday, and they do not find that very appealing. I shall have to make it so for them.”

“If anyone can, I am sure you will.”

“I think another reason they are not averse to going to church is because they remember fondly going there with their mother, did they not?”

“They did.” Dorothy was not a good Christian, but no one cared more about appearances than she. How would it have looked if the Countess of Aynsley didn’t take her proper place in the family pew at the front of the church? It was almost laughable how Dorothy and Rebecca were complete opposites. Rebecca didn’t care about appearances, but she did care about her spiritual life.

They had reached the dining room. Since it was just the five of them this night, the candles in the chandeliers remained unlit, but two massive silver candelabrum lit the table.

“Have you told my daughter about church?”

“Not yet. I actually didn’t have the opportunity to speak with her today.”

When they entered the dining room, Peter stood. “Hello, Rebecca, Uncle.” His nephew looked approvingly upon Lady Aynsley. And Emily did not like it.

Aynsley hated the demeanor that had come over his formerly excessively sweet, gracefully courteous daughter. It would serve her right if Rebecca could not stand the sight of her.

But he would hate that. Why had he allowed Rebecca to extract that bloody promise from him? What Emily needed was a good scolding.

“I see you’re wearing Mama’s jewels,” Emily said.

“Emily! You know those are the Aynsley family jewels. They’re rightfully Rebecca’s now. Until—”

“Pray, dearest!” Rebecca interrupted. “I beg you not mention that dreadful subject.”

His daughter at least had the decency to smile at Rebecca. “I completely agree with you, Rebecca, about Papa’s dreadful propensity to always talk about when he’s gone and Fordyce inherits. I, too, hate that talk.”

He could have let out a huge sigh. His wife and daughter finally found a subject upon which they could agree.

Rebecca ladled clear turtle soup from the tureen into one bowl and passed it to Emily, then started on another. “By the way, Emily, our family will be going to church in the morning. Your father has even done me the goodness to agree to come. Are you not happy about that?”

Emily eyed him. “Truly, Papa?”

“Yes. It’s time I set a good example for my children.”

“Indeed it is.”

* * *

When Rebecca came to his library later that night, he left his desk and came to sit next to her on the sofa in front of the fire. “So did the lads enjoy the latest chapter of
Ivanhoe?
”

“So much so they begged for me to keep reading, but I explained that the anticipation of a good story is almost as much fun as the reading of one. They agreed that the storytelling has made bedtime something to look forward to.”

“Then that’s a very good thing. Alex, in particular, used to cry when he had to go to bed. He took great satisfaction in telling us he was
nocturnal.
”

She laughed. “That is so like Alex to toss out one of his big words!”

He could tell that Alex had won her affection. She could not hide her tender feelings for him as well as Chuckie. He wasn’t sure about Spencer. The lad had to have offended her when he spat out that she was
not
their mother. Other than that, though, Spencer had been amiable to Rebecca.

A pity that he couldn’t say the same about Emily. “I wish you’d reconsider that blasted pledge you extracted from me. My daughter needs a good scolding from a stern father. I don’t at all like the way she treats you.”

She met his gaze with those large almond-shaped eyes of warm brown and spoke softly. “I don’t, either. I want her affection most heartily, but I’m obliged to earn it. Can’t you see that’s the only way it can come?”

He wondered how she could possibly have acquired such a breadth of knowledge about human nature. Had that come from those books she always had her face pressed against? He gave a reluctant nod.

“Tell me about the stage I saw in the nursery. Do the children do productions?” she asked.

He hadn’t given the stage a thought in many years. In fact, he could not remember his children, not even his oldest boys, ever putting on a production. A pity. Some of his fondest childhood memories were from when he and his sister and their cousins had performed plays. “No.”

“Don’t tell me it’s there from when you were a lad!”

“I daresay it was there many years even before I came into the world. Meg and I and our cousins staged many a play there. We would purge the attics for old clothing from generations ago. Of course, they were much too large for us, but we did not seem to perceive that.” He shook his head. “And our poor parents had to come and sit on children’s chairs and pretend to be a rapt audience.” He chuckled.

“It sounds like wonderful fun. We’ll have to encourage the children to do a play.”

He agreed. It was funny how often his thoughts seemed to mesh with Rebecca’s. “It might be difficult to find material for so few actors.”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about finding something. Why can we not encourage Emily to write a play? Perhaps she could take something simple like one of Jesus’s
parables and create a play from it.”

“So my little Bible-spouter has an ulterior motive?” He regarded his wife with amusement.

She shrugged, the slight movement causing the graceful clusters of rubies in her necklace to twinkle. “I cannot shirk my parental responsibility.”

She made him feel wretchedly guilty that he had neglected his children’s spiritual development. Thank God for Rebecca.

And he really meant it. For the first time in a very long while he felt the stir of his relationship with his Lord being rekindled. Had God sent Rebecca to him?

Chapter Ten

T
he chapel of St. Andrews was lovely with the early morning sunlight filtering through the stained-glass windows and the creaking pews filling with freshly scrubbed villagers dressed in their finest. Aynsley had told her the church was three hundred years old. She could well believe it. Generations of the Compton family had worn indentations into the smooth wooden pew upon which they sat. The wood planks of the nave, too, wore thinner in the center where they had been trodden upon for three centuries.

Each one of the stained-glass windows on either side of the church bore a plaque beneath it that dedicated the window to the memory of a different member of the Compton family. The newest of these commemorated the life of Dorothy Compton, the Countess of Aynsley. Her sons Spencer and Alex paused in front of it and said a little prayer.

“What are they doing?” Chuckie asked Rebecca and Aynsley, each of whom held one of his little hands, as they entered the family’s pew in the front row of the church.

Rebecca held her index finger to her lips, then whispered, “Remember what we told you? You’re not supposed to talk in church.”

He whispered back, “I forgot.”

Rebecca met Aynsley’s amused gaze, and they both smiled.

It was a few more moments before Emily and Peter came strolling down the center aisle. Since Aynsley’s carriage was not large enough to accommodate everyone, the young couple had come in Aynsley’s phaeton. All eyes were on the beautiful couple as they made their way to the front of the church. Emily, in her butter-yellow
dress, was uncommonly pretty, and Peter, so much taller than she, looked handsome.

Once again, Rebecca met her husband’s admiring gaze and smiled. He fairly burst with pride toward his lovely daughter. She thought, too, he welcomed the opportunity to display his family to the villagers of Wey, many of whom he’d known since he was a lad.

She knew, though, that such pride was no reason to come to the Lord’s house. She hoped they all had come here this morning to offer praise to their Creator on His day.

They all scooted down to make room for Emily and her future husband.

Prior to the start of the service, Rebecca prayed fervently that her husband would be filled with the Holy Spirit. It was her duty as his wife not only to see to his material comfort but also to help him fulfill his spiritual needs. And as she did each night when she said her prayers, she asked the Lord to continue to fill her with love toward Emily, even when the girl was openly hostile to her.
Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.

When the vicar entered the sanctuary, his glance flicked to her husband, and a hint of a smile tweaked at his lips. Dressed in his silk vestments, he appeared to be close to Aynsley’s age. Like her husband, he possessed a full head of brown hair that was brushed with gray at the temples.

The gospel that day, from Matthew 20, she knew well. In Jesus’s parable, the workers who were hired last and worked the least were paid the full amount first. Thinking of the Lord’s benevolence brought a smile to her face.

In the vicar’s short sermon afterward he explained the parable to his small congregation that was comprised of all ages and all social stations. Rebecca wondered if there was special significance that on the day Lord Aynsley returned to his church, that particular gospel was read.

Please, Lord, I know my husband may be last in coming to You, but I beg that You allow him first into the kingdom of Heaven. I ask, too, that all of my stepchildren will welcome You into their lives from this day forward and that You will show them—and their father—the way to eternal salvation.

Spencer and Alex were on their best behavior and gave the appearance they were listening intently. Emily had no need to consult her prayer book. She knew all the prayers by heart. For the first time, Rebecca had the opportunity to view her stepdaughter in a favorable light. It was easy to see why Aynsley and Peter championed her. She could be delightful.
Please, God, I need Your help with Emily, too. I beseech You to banish any obstacles that impede us from loving each other as a mother and daughter ought.

Chuckie was fascinated by all the new sights and sounds and people, including other children his own age. When the congregation prayed aloud, he pretended to say the prayers along with them, moving his mouth without words actually coming out. Rebecca almost burst into laughter.

Following the service, Rebecca and Aynsley and Emily and Peter stood on the steps in front of the chapel’s timber door and greeted not only the vicar but also most of the villagers. No matter how amiable the conversation, Aynsley made it a point to introduce his bride to each person who came up to them. She hoped she could remember half of their names.

Rebecca watched helplessly as the boys proceeded to get their Sunday clothing soiled while playing with other lads on the church grounds. What kind of an impression would she make if she were to screech at the lads or admonish them? They weren’t doing anything all the other boys in the village weren’t doing.

She cringed every time she was addressed as Lady Aynsley, but true to the compromise she’d made with her husband, she smiled while being addressed as such. She even found herself once again addressing him as Lord Aynsley—which she had not done since they married.

She especially abhorred the frequent observation that she didn’t look a day older than Lady Emily. “I am a great deal older than I appear,” she continued to tell the curious. “The birthday after next I’ll be thirty.”

At least twenty times Aynsley said, “Yes, the lads
have
grown so fast. Every time I return from London it seems they’ve grown a foot each.” And twenty more times he would respond to compliments over Emily’s beauty.

Rebecca was able to observe Emily being charming and quietly gracious as she stood in the shadow of her outgoing cousin. Why couldn’t Emily be like that with her?

On the way home, Rebecca was delighted that Chuckie chose to sit upon her lap. He commenced to sucking his thumb and wrapping a coil of her hair within his fingers as his drowsy head lay on her sternum. A contentment as deep and satisfying as anything she’d ever experienced rushed over her as she clasped this precious child in her arms and dropped soft kisses on his blond curls.

When she lifted her lids and realized Aynsley watched her with an inscrutable look on his face, her sense of well-being almost overcame her with emotions so profound she could not understand them. Certainly she had never experienced anything of such an emotional magnitude in her entire eight and twenty years.

Perhaps it was the confines of the carriage that contributed to the cozy effect. As grand and stately and solid as Dunton was, she thought she preferred just being in this carriage with her family.

For no longer was she an appendage to dear Maggie’s family. Now she had her very own family. An honorable husband. Three lads she adored. A pity she and Emily could not feel the closeness for which she longed, but she trusted God to remedy the painful estrangement.

“How are you lads enjoying
Ivanhoe?
” their father asked.

“Ever so much,” Alex said.

“Papa?” Spencer asked.

“Yes?”

“Could me and Alex get bows and arrows?”

Aynsley shrugged. “What do you think, Mother?”

“She’s not our mother,” Spencer said.

Chuckie shot up. “She is, too!”

The spell was broken. Her little world was not as perfect as it had seemed a minute earlier.

“It’s irrelevant what they call me, but as to the question about archery equipment, I think it would be great fun for the lads—but only if you or another responsible man is always with them to ensure their safety.”

“Then we could pretend we’re Ivanhoe,” Spencer said.

Alex pulled back on an imaginary bowstring. “I want to be Locksley!”

“I’ll see if I can’t get my hands on some,” their father promised. He looked at Rebecca. “It appears you’ve selected a book my sons enjoy very much.”

My sons.
How she wished they were
our sons.
Would they ever come to think of her as their earthly mother? She truly did not want to replace their birth mother...or did she? She wished to always honor Dorothy. She wished for the children to never forget the woman who gave them life. But she also wished to take her place. She wanted to think of them as her own children, and she hoped that one day they would feel toward her the same as they would have toward their true mother.

She wanted her name on their lips when they were sad or glad. She wanted them to understand that whatever affected them, affected her. She wanted them to come to think of her as their mother, the mother
God sent.

For she knew the Lord had called her to this family. Now why would He not remove all the impediments to a happy family?

* * *

These evenings after the children were tucked into their beds were coming to be his favorite part of the day. Not that he did not enjoy being with his children. He derived a great amount of pleasure from each of them, but he also enjoyed these evenings sitting before the fire in his library when it was just him and his wife.

She could discuss politics more intelligently than any man he knew. And they did so for hours on end without ever running out of things to say. Rebecca’s contributions to the speech he was drafting to deliver to Lords were immeasurable.

This night he was working silently at his desk, Rebecca seated on a sofa near the fire while catching up on her newspaper reading.

“This says Mr. Wilburforce will introduce a measure in Commons which will limit child laborers. I certainly hope you will support his efforts in Lords.”

He impatiently tossed aside his speech. “I most certainly will not! We’ve had this conversation before, Rebecca.” He felt like he was reprimanding one of his boys. “While I do pity these children, you must understand many of them are orphans. If they weren’t employed, they’d go hungry on the streets.”

“It’s a wretched society we live in that allows children to go hungry on the streets.”

“You won’t get any argument from me. I have the utmost empathy for orphans. In fact, I’ve established and maintain a rather large orphanage in the Capital, but it’s merely a drop in the bucket. There are thousands of these wretches. My pockets are only so deep.”

“Everyone, not just rich men like you, should do their part to take care of the poor orphans.”

“That’s a wonderful sentiment, but that’s all it is—sentiment.”

Her eyes narrow, her lips compressed, she glared at him a moment before she deigned to address him. “I cannot believe I am married to a man who will oppose the honorable Mr. Wilburforce.”

“I never said I was going to mount an opposition to the man—I just cannot support him. I have always supported his antislavery measures, but you must own, that hardly affects the English pocketbook.”

“How can you be so progressive in all other matters and so pigheaded about child labor?”

“You know very well I’m a pragmatist. Idealists never live to see their ideas fulfilled.”

With a great, dramatic flair, his sulking wife took up her newspaper again and began to read it while attempting to ignore him. Except for the frequent huffs. And the crinkling of pages as she turned them much more noisily than she had before.

If she could act like that, so could he! He returned to writing his speech.

Perhaps fifteen minutes passed before she finally spoke. “I should like to see the working lads.”

“What working lads?”

“The ones you employ in your mines.”

“My dear woman, my mines are located in Wales.”

She shrugged. “Shropshire’s near Wales.”

“My mine is more than six hours away.”

Her “oh” sounded like it came from a young child.

They both went back to their singular pursuits. Which bothered him. He did not like any kind of friction between them. He liked it much better when their minds and thoughts meshed like those couples who had been married for decades.

Another half hour passed before he had to put a stop to this ridiculous bickering between them. Not that he was going to give in to her foolish demand. “Pray, my dear wife, could I interest you in a game of chess?”

She flung down her newspaper. “Indeed you could! I adore chess.”

He moved to the sofa where she sat and proceeded to set up the chess pieces on the tea table in front of them.

“I propose,” she said, her eyes flashing, “that we make a wager.”

He raised a single brow.

“If I win, you will agree to support Mr. Wilburforce.”

A sudden fury bolted through him. No woman had ever dared to tell him what to do or how to vote! One whack of his hand flattened all the chess pieces. Mumbling under his breath, he leaped to his feet. “I’ve had enough of your foolishness, madam.”

Then he stormed from the room.

He dared not look at her face as he strode angrily across the chamber and slammed the door behind him. It would have been too painful to see a wounded look on her face. He was disgusted with himself for his angry outburst, for offending the poor woman whose concern had been not for herself but for unfortunate orphans.

Nevertheless, she’d made him angry with her meddling ways. Dorothy’s meddling ways had once nearly destroyed his political career. He had vowed to never again go down that road. It had taken him years to repair the damage done by Dorothy’s lies.

Even though it was a cool evening, he left the house and walked the grounds of the place he loved best—Dunton Hall, where he’d been born, where each of his children had drawn their first breath. This was where he had learned to ride and to read, and it was on this land that he would one day be buried—though Rebecca would not like for him to be thinking of that! The very thought brought a smile to his lips.

His strides long and swift, he did not even think of how bitterly cold it was or of the brisk winds that stirred up whistling noises in the surrounding trees. His thoughts were too melancholy. Perhaps this marriage had not been such a good idea. He’d never been happy with his first wife. What made him think he could find happiness with a second?