Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 07] - Married Past Redemption (15 page)

They were inside the lovely old church now, and Papa came up
and pulled her cold little hand through his arm, told her not to be
nervous although his own hand was none too steady, and led her forward.
The organist was playing; the church was filled. Heads were turning,
kindly faces smiling, as with trembling knees she walked down the
aisle. She hoped that Beatrice and Judith and her cousins were behind
her, hoped that Strand would not attempt to hurry the priest through
the ceremony. It was too much to hope that she would wake up and find
it had all been a bad dream…

Such the reflections of a bride on her wedding day.

Vaguely, she saw Strand watching her approach. The bachelor
party must have been wild indeed, for he looked positively haggard. The
priest was speaking, kindly but interminably. Music again, and the
angelic voices of the choirboys ringing sweetly through the noble old
sanctuary. More talk, and then Strand was making the responses in an
odd, uncertain voice, stumbling over the words, but getting through it
at last. She heard her own voice as from a great distance, clear and
calm. "I, Lisette Hermione, take thee, Justin Derwent…" Unfaltering.
Incredible. But it went on and on while she stood in that strange,
trancelike state, hearing everything as though she were very far away.
He was putting the ring on her finger, his hand hot and trembling. She
stared down at it, reacting mechanically, waiting, while Strand put
back her veil. He stared at her, his eyes reflecting a sort of awed
confusion, as though he, too, were a captive in this dream. He kissed
her perfunctorily, and they moved on to sign the register. Having
somehow contrived to write her name, Lisette heard a sudden muffled
snort beside her. What was he doing now? Surely he did not mean to
disgrace them all? She glanced up in dismay. Strand took the quill from
her hand, grinned, and winked at her. Bewildered, she looked down again
and thought an appalled, My heaven! How could I have done so stupid a
thing? But—there it was. Instead of "Lisette Hermione" she had written
"Lisette
Heroine"!
She could have sunk and felt
her face burn.

Strand pulled her hand possessively through his arm. ' 'What a
slip!" he chuckled. "Poor
ton
, m'dear! Or did you
mean it?"

Poor
ton
, indeed! Facing the assembled
throng, she smiled sweetly, and whispered, "But, of course! I deserve a
medal, do not you think?"

"A small one, perhaps," he quipped. "But—you will likely earn
a large one… as we go along."

The
wedding breakfast was held at the
Clarendon and was a whirl of gaiety and embraces, champagne and
magnificent food, music and laughter and nostalgic tears. Much of the
time the bride and groom were side by side, but sometimes they were
parted, and a laugh went up when someone addressed Lisette as Mrs.
Strand and she made no response. An extremely handsome young man came
over with Charity Strand, who introduced him as Alain Devenish, a good
friend of Colonel Leith. He was fair, with curling hair and features so
perfect it was all Lisette could do not to stare at him. Fortunately,
he possessed a cheerful, impudent manner so that one soon forgot his
looks and was enabled to enjoy him for himself, and in a very short
while he and the bride were on the best of terms.

Coming up behind them, Strand said, "So you have met my
heroine, have you, Devenish?"and Lisette knew she would not soon hear
the end of that slip. She joined in the laughter when her insensitive
bridegroom told the story, and she was still smiling when a touch on
her elbow caused her to turn and look straight at Rachel Strand Leith.
The lady was small and fine-boned, with hair of a very pale dusty
brown, great blue eyes, a straight little nose, and a beautifully
shaped mouth just now curving to a rather wistful smile. Not all the
accounts of how lovely she was had prepared Lisette for a girl so
angelically fair; not all the defamatory remarks and vitriolic gossip
could prevail against so sweet an expression. Struggling to ignore
Tristram's magnetic presence, Lisette knew that Strand, who had been
comparatively restrained today, watched
her,
and that Grandmama, leaning on his arm, was glaring at her.

For her part, Rachel Leith thought her brother's bride
ethereally lovely, with the delicate lace framing her shining hair, her
dusky eyes still lit by the smile that had faded from her lips. "Oh,
Justin," she breathed. "How did you ever manage to win her?"

Lisette glanced with a trace of cynicism to Strand. He was
regarding her gravely, but with an element of pleading at the back of
his eyes that startled her. This notorious lady was his sister and,
insofar as was possible for so cold a nature, he might be fond of her.
Quite apart from that consideration, to even slightly snub the beauty
would be to give the gabble-mongers grist for their mills. Therefore,
she inserted at her most gracious, "I might well ask Leith the same
thing."

Rachel laughed, reached out her hand impulsively, then
withdrew it, as though anticipating a rebuff. Why Fate must be so
fiendishly contrary, Lisette could not guess, but she felt a warm
liking for this girl she had determined to loathe, and at once reached
out to embrace her.

The two young husbands locked glances. "What lucky dogs we
are," said Leith. "Did you ever see two such lovely creatures, Justin?"

Strand murmured an agreement, but his tone was cool, and there
was no answering smile for his handsome brother-in-law, seeing which,
the shrewd old eyes of Lady Bayes-Copeland grew troubled.

For quite some time after Denise left
her, Lisette sat at the dressing table, staring blindly at her mirrored
reflection. Mrs. Hayward had hired the petite maid to wait on her new
mistress, but had said she'd thought Mrs. Strand would prefer to
interview personally for a dresser. Lisette was pleased with her
abigail. Denise was tiny and vivacious and blessed with a cheerful
nature. The housekeeper was congratulated upon her choice and accepted
these kind words with only a nod, no spark of liking wanning her cold
eyes. That the plump, impeccably neat woman adored Justin was very
obvious, and equally obvious the fact that his bride was viewed with,
at most, a deferral of judgement. It would be unfortunate, thought
Lisette, if her first task at Strand

Hall was to dismiss an old family retainer! And as to hiring a
dresser—that seemed the height of absurdity. What on earth would she
need with a dresser, out here miles from anywhere?

She had not known until they were in the carriage, waving
goodbye to the merry crowd of well-wishers, where they would spend
their honeymoon. When Strand told her in his offhand way that they were
bound for his country home, she'd been aghast, and had said
sarcastically, "I must have misheard you, sir. This
is
my honeymoon, is it not?"

"And mine," he had pointed out. "I truly do apologize, but
there are matters I have neglected too long. In a week or so I shall
take you wherever in the world you wish, but for now, it must be Strand
Hall, I'm afraid."

It was all of a piece, thought Lisette, standing and
discarding the soft cloud of tulle that was her peignoir. A fitting
start to this miserable marriage! She heard approaching footsteps and
in a sudden surge of panic glanced at her reflection in the mirror.
Despite her aversion to her bridegroom, womanlike, she'd been unable to
resist the temptation to make herself as alluring as possible. Her
nightgown was a diaphanous drift of light orchid, through which the
graceful curves of her body were mistily apparent. She was pale against
that rich colour, her eyes looking scared and enormous, but she knew
she was pretty. Would her husband think her pretty? She began to shake
as the footsteps came closer, then relaxed with a little sigh of relief
as they passed by and faded into silence.

She extinguished the lamp, crossed to the great bed, and stood
staring at it. Clenching her small fists, she prayed for courage,
clambered in, and folded the sheet back tidily over her waist. She blew
out all but one candle in the branch on her bedside table, clasped her
hands, and waited. And, inevitably, her fears grew with each long
moment. Mama had told her very little of what was expected of a wife,
save only that she must be conformable, not hang upon Strand's sleeve
(how utterly ludicrous!), and be willing to look the other way when he
indulged in his "little
affaires."
Naturally, he
would expect her to provide him with an heir, but he seemed a
reasonable sort of man, and would likely not want a very large brood.
Lisette gripped her trembling hands tighter. Beatrice had been less
restrained. From her had come a warning to be prepared for sadistic
brutality—for the lustful violation of every concept of maidenly
modesty that had ever been inculcated into her mind, and for pain and
savage degradation. Dear God! she thought, tears stinging her eyes. And
to be thus shamefully handled by such as Justin Strand, who already
considers me no more than a heifer purchased on the auction block!

She could see again the glitter in his eyes when he had looked
at her, both in the church and at the reception. And his hand, when
he'd helped her cut the wedding cake, had been very warm. She had heard
the expression, "blazing with passion." Was that what it meant? Was she
to be subjected to an orgy of unrestrained lust? Her spirits plummeted,
and she was soon so depressed that her highest hope was to be so
fortunate as to succumb at the birth of her first child. On second
thought it did not seem quite fair to leave the poor mite without a
mother. Perhaps it would be better did she instead contract some
mysterious wasting disease and gracefully fade away until… Her heart
bounced into her throat as a scratch came at the door. Shivering and
overwrought, she called a faint, "Come… in…"

She was unspeakably relieved when Denise tripped into the
room, curtsied, and handed her a folded paper.

Lisette smiled and thanked her, and, when the abigail had
quietly closed the door, stared at the paper in her hand. It would be
just like that wretched brute to have forgotten her altogether! Or to
have gone merrily off to play cards with some of his vulgar friends to
return at heaven knows what hour of the night, drunk and even more
depraved than usual!

She broke the seal, unfolded the page, and read the words
written in a near-illegible scrawl.

My dear wife—
["Hah!" she snorted
impatiently

How you may ever forgive me, I dare not guess, but I
am called away on a matter that it is beyond my power to
ignore. 

Were
you to turn your back on your unfortunate husband and go home to
Portland Place, I could scarce blame you, and can only entreat that you
not do so.

Know that, however grieved you may be, my own regret
is tenfold, and try to be patient until the return of

Your contrite if absent husband, 

Strand

One reading caused Lisette's eyes not only to lose every last
vestige of the terror that had so recently filled them, but to widen to
a surprising degree. The second reading caused them to positively
spark, while, quite forgetting the fearful trepidation with which she
had awaited the coming of her lord and master, she now was possessed by
a boiling fury by reason of his absence.

"Oh!" she gasped inadequately.
"Oh!"
And
lowering the hands that so tightly clutched the letter, she stared
around the room as though it were filled with curious onlookers.

"Can you
credit
this?" she demanded of
the bedpost. "He is… called
away?"
The bedpost
maintaining a wooden stupidity, she threw back the sheet, sprang
tigerishly from the bed, and began to prowl up and down. "It is not
enough," she raged, "that he
bought
me! Not
enough that he has—has
dumped
me here in this
confounded desolation! Oh, yes! I said
confounded
—
and meant it! It is not enough I have been wrenched from the arms of
the man I love!" (A statement of somewhat dubious authenticity.) "He
has been—
called away!"
Pausing before the mirror
and catching sight of her flushed cheeks and wild eyes, she brandished
the letter at her reflection and through gnashing teeth cried, "Look at
yourself, Miss—Mrs. Justin Derwent Strand! Purchased like a slab of
beef! And on your wedding night—your
wedding night
—abandoned
by the wretched clod! Abandoned, humiliated, and made to look utterly
ridiculous!"

Seething, she ran to the wardrobe and hauled out her valise
and a bandbox. "He cannot blame me, can't he?" she panted, wrenching at
the straps on the valise. "I am to—" She again had recourse to the
letter, which was annoying since she was kneeling on it and, in
retrieving it, tore it in half. Jamming the sections together, she
snorted, "I am to—to be patient.
Patient!
Dear
God!
Relieved
would be more apropos! Overjoyed!
Delighted! May he
never
return! And when he
does—" contradictorily— "when he does—I shall be
gone!"

She stood and began to stuff gowns and habits ruthlessly into
the inoffensive valise, then turned to trot, panting, to her dressing
table, and gather up hairbrushes, combs, hairpins, and pots of creams
and lotions. Running back to the valise, she tossed them inside
haphazardly, all the while calling down maledictions upon her absent
bridegroom, until that worthy's ears, wherever they were, must have
fairly frizzled. "How
dare
he!" snarled Lisette,
pouncing on a candlestick which had somehow found its way into the
valise, and casting it from her with loathing. "How
dare
he treat me with such flagrant contempt?" Only then came the ultimate
horror: "What will the
servants
think?"