Saved by Scandal (14 page)

Galen thought he’d never get that sticky stuff out of his hair. The night was about a week long, and daybreak brought no end to the round of weeping, shouting, shaking, and shivering, followed by brief, exhausted dream-ridden catnaps. Galen had no idea if any of the food or fluid reached past Ansel’s tongue, or if any of his words of reassurance reached past the nightmares.

He sent Clegg off to church when they heard the bells, deciding they needed all the prayers they could garner.

“Too bad the nipper can’t just go to sleep for a bit and wake up when the worst of this is over,” Clegg offered when he brought the viscount some breakfast before he left.

It seemed the worst was still to come. Ansel’s body started convulsing, and his skin felt cold and clammy, his breath coming in gasps. He was terrified, and so was Galen. Ansel begged and begged for the drugs, for an end to the torture.

Galen could not take much more himself. He looked at the bottle the doctor had left with them, the one that could end this innocent child’s suffering, for now, and he did the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. He hit the boy.

All his years of practice at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Parlor had not taught the viscount the best way to level an eleven-year-old. He held the punch as best he could, trying not to break Ansel’s jaw yet knowing that if he failed, he’d not have the stomach for a second blow. The boy’s screams stopped in mid-note, and his eyes widened in shock, before rolling back in his head. Considering the lad’s faulty memory, Galen could only hope he’d forget this, too.

When Clegg returned, Ansel was sleeping, real sleep, not a restless doze nor a barely breathing stupor. “I guess the
good Lord does answer prayers,” the manservant commented, ignoring the huge purplish bruise on the boy’s chin.

Ansel did not awaken until suppertime that night. His arms and legs still moved awkwardly, without his volition, it seemed, and his eyes still had trouble focusing, but his face seemed to have better color, aside from the contusion. Most encouraging of all, he swallowed what the viscount put in his mouth, without urging.

While Galen gently wiped Ansel’s chin, fearing to feed the boy too much all at once, the youngster stared at him and asked, “Who are you?”

The viscount’s heart sank, that the lad could have been saved, and still end in an asylum. “I am Galen Woodrow, Viscount Woodbridge, at your service, Lord Penrose. This is my man, Clegg.”

Ansel ignored the servant. “But who
are
you? Why are you here?”

“Didn’t I say? Your sister sent me. Margot.”

“You might have, I cannot recall. Why?”

“Why can you not recall? You have been ill and—”

“Why did Margot send you, sir?”

“Oh, because I am her husband, of course.”

“No, you are not. She would have told me. Mrs. Hapgood would have known.”

“I’m afraid it was too sudden to ask your permission for your sister’s hand, Baron, but we are, indeed, married.”

Ansel was not convinced. “How do I know you are not lying to me like everyone else? You might not even know my sister.”

So Galen pulled out the pad of drawing paper he’d been working on while Ansel slept. He showed the boy the pastel sketches he’d done of Margot, studies for the oil painting he hoped to begin soon. On one page she had her hand upraised, holding a rose. In another she was wearing the ivory gown she’d donned for their wedding, flowers twined in her hair. Galen’s favorite, though, was the portrait of Margot he’d conjured from his imagination, her blue eyes staring
straight at him, her lips turned up in a smile, and her glorious flaxen hair trailing down her half-bared shoulders.

Tears rolling down his cheeks, Ansel stared longest at the picture of the sister he thought lost to him forever. Then he said, “You’ve used too much ochre for her hair. If you lay the yellow over the burnt umber, you’ll get better contrast.”

Galen dropped the box of colored charcoals, but Ansel was already back asleep.

The next time he woke, just a few hours later, Galen fed him some beef broth and helped him sit up. Ansel was like a rag doll, but he was not raving. An even better sign was that he seemed to recognize Galen. At least he was no longer afraid of him.

“You might try calling me by my first name, Ansel,” the viscount offered, in case Lord Woodbridge was too much for the boy’s weak wits to remember. “After all, we are related now, you know.”

“You really are married to Margot then, my lord, ah, Galen?”

“I really am, to my great pleasure.” Galen found the words came easily.

“Does that mean we are brothers?”

“Brothers-in-law, the next best thing.”

“I always wanted a brother.”

“Me, too. Now go to sleep so we can go home soon,” Galen got past the lump in his throat.

Ansel was a bit stronger every time he awakened. Galen even helped him stand once to use the chamber pot, to everyone’s relief. He was still weak, though, and weepy. Sometimes he just sobbed from the agony of his body’s recovery. Now that he was more aware, Ansel would be embarrassed to be held like an infant, so Galen just sat by the bedside, feeling less than helpless. He tried telling Ansel about the music room and the painting studio again, in case he hadn’t remembered, as well as the pony and the swimming pond. Finally, out of desperation, Galen began singing, every lullaby he ever heard, every love tune, and a
few lusty barroom songs. He could not carry a tune in a basket, but he soldiered on, switching to hymns and Christmas carols when he ran out of ballads. The viscount was midway through “Adeste Fidelis” when Ansel stopped crying.

“Do you swear you and Margot are married?” he asked.

“I swear.”

“I guess she didn’t choose you for your voice.”

*

Galen was eager to leave by Tuesday, to get back to Margot. Ansel was anxious to leave, worrying that Uncle Manfred would find him and take him back, despite Galen’s reassurances. Clegg was looking forward to seeing his lordship dressed as a viscount should be, and the innkeeper was looking forward to seeing the last of these well-paying but worrisome guests.

The doctor, however, would not hear of it. “What, take the boy out in the damp?” he demanded. “Can you not see it is pouring rain? The slightest chill will carry him off, in his state. What was the point of curing him of the noxious influence, if you are going to let him die of an influenza?”

So they waited until Wednesday, a beautifully sunny day. But the road was rutted, and traffic was heavy, since it was market day. A shepherd was taking his entire flock to the next town, slowly. Two young girls were leading a flock of geese, their webbed feet coated with tar. Wagons loaded down with vegetables were barely traveling faster than Galen could have walked. Ansel turned out to be as poor a traveler as Galen, but the young baron could not ride on top with the driver and groom, not where he might fall off or chance a cool breeze in his face. The detour one peddler recommended took them miles out of the way, and the lead horse came up lame. Then it began to rain again. Galen began to worry if they’d get to London in time for Margot’s final performance on Saturday.

Chapter Fifteen

Whoever said out of sight, out of mind, was absolutely correct. Galen was out of sight, and Margot was going out of her mind. How could she miss what she’d never known? Besides, everywhere she went, scores of people were wanting to see what the viscount found so attractive, wanting to ask questions for which the new viscountess had no answers. Margot should have taken the knocker off the Grosvenor Square house door, or moved back to Mrs. McGuirk’s until Galen returned, she realized, for she was not going to find a moment’s peace here, or a decent meal. People were constantly at the door to leave cards, pay morning calls, ask her to sponsor this or that charity, invite her to attend some house party or other, where she’d be welcome to sing, of course. Fenning handled the door, at least, keeping track of the cards with corners turned down to show who had called in person, as opposed to those who had sent wedding gifts, invitations, or congratulations via their servants. The mail he simply stacked in the butler’s pantry when the viscount’s desk became invisible under the blizzard of white vellum.

The Oriental Parlor was given over to the wedding presents. One more silver epergne, Margot counted, and they could open a shop. She didn’t know what to do with ten tea sets or thirty silver candelabra, or how to thank perfect strangers. Why, one of the hideous centerpieces might be an heirloom from Galen’s godmother, whoever that might be, requiring a more personal acknowledgment. Besides, she
had rehearsals, and a room to prepare for Ansel. Fenning suggested she hire a secretary.

How could she hire a secretary when she couldn’t even find a housekeeper or a chef? Margot had asked Galen to see if Mrs. Hapgood would come, so she only wanted to hire an interim housekeeper anyway, which the agency guaranteed her was no difficulty, with so many people eager for positions. Not this one. Half the women the agency sent over for the housekeeping position looked around as if this were a house of ill repute. That was the half not sent screaming by Ruff. Too many of them eyed those silver candlesticks with a calculating glance, calculating how much they could get from the fences, Margot made no doubt. Meanwhile, she was overseeing the maids and the menus, striving to earn Fenning’s approval of her house-holding skills with as much effort as she put into pleasing her audience. Hiring a chef was all too easy; keeping one was harder. Philippe broke out in splotches from dog hair. Jacques refused to cook for a dog. Georges wanted the kitchen refurbished before he could create culinary marvels. Jean-Claude hated the English and tried to burn the kitchen down around their ears, so they had to redecorate anyway. And Antoine ate garlic, a great deal of garlic. Margot decided to let Ruff do the interviewing from then on. Any chef who did not run, was to be hired.

They were not starving. Margot had her mother’s recipe for crepes, Fenning could make toast, Ella was a dab hand at frying eggs, and the scullery maid knew how to slice vegetables and beef for soup, although she could not read the labels on the sacks and jars of spices. They had lovely teas, at any rate. Fenning had contracted with Gunther’s to deliver.

Margot’s standing at the theater was troublesome, too, with Lord Woodbridge absent from Town. On the day Galen left, she was delivered to the side door in style, escorted by no less a dignified personage than the Duke of Woburton’s own London butler, Fenning…and the dog, the maid, and the two footmen Galen had insisted she have as guards. No actress had ever been accorded such respect. She sang her
selections as usual, and the audience accorded her resounding but dignified appreciation. When she faced the family box, everyone held their breath until a single rose was tossed down by a dark-clad arm, then roses fell to Margot’s feet from all sides, until she was standing in a bower.

On the second night, however, Skippy got too excited about his part in the drama, or else he forgot his instructions altogether, but he stepped to the railing of the box and waved to her and to the audience.

Whispers rose as people recognized the lanky reverend.

One wag in the pit called out, “What’s the matter, sweetings, Woodbridge left you already? Don’t worry, I’ll keep you company.”

A woman with hennaed hair stood up and shouted that it took a real woman to keep ’is lordship from wanderin’, not a china doll. “Send ’im my way, love,” she shouted, “iffen you know where to find ’im.”

“Mayhaps he shabbed off to Scotland after the other bride,” another would-be wit added to the rumors and speculation.

“I know right where
mon cher
is,” Margot said, trying to banter with the groundlings sitting close to the stage. “My own Sir Galahad is off slaying dragons for me, to bring back the richest jewel I know.”

Disappointed, angry they’d been duped, cheated of the romantic happily ever after, the crowd now seemed to consider Margot’s marriage a hole-in-corner affair that Woodbridge already regretted. Suddenly, this was no great love match; it was a sordid liaison. The flowers were thrown
at
her instead of
to
her, almost pelting Margot as she ran off the stage without singing her last selection.

The manager was furious she had not finished the set, for now the lower-price-paying patrons would grow more raucous, with minutes still to go before the stage and the actors were ready to open the next act. “You be here tomorrow ready to sing, missy,” he insisted, forgetting she was now my lady, “and get that husband of yours back here.”

As if Margot wasn’t praying for Galen’s return hard enough. She was almost sick with worry. He should have been back; she should have resigned and gone with him. Now she’d made micefeet of all their machinations. Galen had married her to salvage his pride; now he would hate her for this new mortification. Worst of all, she was afraid to go back on stage Saturday night if he was not there.

The message from Woodbridge waiting at the house was no help. He had Ansel, but they had some matters to attend before reaching London. What, she fretted, was his lordship having a new suit of clothes made while she was being undressed by all those hungry eyes in the audience? How dare he dither when she was so distraught! She was too upset to mind the meager meal set out for her.

Galen had enclosed Mrs. Hapgood’s address, however. Concerned that their old housekeeper was not looking after Ansel, Margot wrote to her immediately, and to the cook at Penrose Hall Galen thought might be available. Mrs. Shircastle was a solid country cook, not a fancy French chef, and Margot would welcome her with open arms, even if her cooking was not what the
ton
preferred. Let them eat at someone else’s table, Margot thought defiantly, for she would not welcome such fickle, unfriendly people to hers. Three invitations had already been rescinded. Too bad no one wanted their epergnes returned.