Sharon Sobel (5 page)

“You shall not.”

Lark looked at her father in surprise, thinking her vows very prettily expressed.

“You shall not choose anyone at all in the future, my girl.” Leicester stopped his nodding and rose to his feet. “I will do it for you.”

“You cannot,” Lark whispered, barely making any sound at all.

“I can and I will.”

“My sisters were all free to choose their husbands.”

“Your sisters managed to do it efficiently and without scandal. You, on the other hand, have made us the object of derision through all society. Lady Fontaine felt compelled to ask Delphinium if we would like you to accompany her to France this summer to remove you from the public eye.”

“France! You cannot be thinking of finding me a husband there!”

“And why not?” Leicester roared. “I have been paying for you to have French lessons for fifteen years!”

“You are so ashamed you would have me lost to you—perhaps forever? An exile in the land of our enemies?”

Leicester’s look softened, though not enough to provide his daughter with any degree of security.

“I would not have you so far, not even to salvage the family’s reputation. Indeed, the husband I have chosen for you is a good deal closer. He is a gentleman in need of a wife, and presents his suit in very sincere and practical terms. Do you recall meeting our distant relations, Lord Raeborn and Mr. Queensman, at Delphinium and John’s gathering?”

Lark felt her body grow warm, remembering Mr. Queensman only too well. He had the severe look of a sincere
and practical person, and a physician would surely find a wife an asset in his busy life. Of course, Brighton society was not what one might have wished, but the king’s presence in town would be the harbinger of better things to come. And Lark suddenly felt sure she could soften Mr. Queensman’s look and make him find reasons to laugh. If the gentleman had already expressed an interest in her, then it must be requited… .

“If you desire me to answer Mr. Queensman’s suit, Father, I will obey,” Lark said with more modesty than she felt.

“Mr. Queensman?” Leicester cried, his voice rising again. “Mr. Queensman? My girl, if I am setting you up for marriage, I assure you it will not be to a mere physician with an estate in Brighton! Nor to one whose expectations are tenuous at best! I do not care who strikes a better pose, or dances a better reel! Your childish admiration is to no avail here. Mr. Queensman!”

“If not Mr. Queensman, then whom?” Lark asked, and then, “Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes,” Leicester said softly.

“You cannot tie me to such a man. He is most dreadful. And he must be … why, even older than you, Father.”

“Thank you very much,” Leicester said tersely. “But I think you will find Lord Raeborn quite an amiable husband. And with luck you shall be a mother within a year, effectively blotting out the doctor’s expectations. So much for Mr. Queensman! What could you have been thinking, girl?”

What indeed? Why would she imagine her father settled on a man she merely disliked, whose presence made her uncomfortable? Her punishment in being tied to such a one would scarcely be sufficient to redeem her disgrace. Instead, she must be married to a man fully repellent and utterly stupid.

So would she be made to pay for Hindley’s treachery.

“I am thinking I shall suffer through every minute I am married to Lord Raeborn.”

“It is too bad. You might have considered the consequences when you gave your heart to those who proved inconstant. You will find Raeborn to be a devoted husband, I have no doubt.”

“Father.” Lark reached out, pleading. “Please do not do this to me. Please reconsider.”

Leicester backed away, avoiding her hands and her supplication.

“It is too late, girl. I will not be blamed for the same offense as those others to whom you foolishly gave your heart. I will remain steadfast. And I have already given my promise to Lord Raeborn.”

“I will kill myself on the day ere we wed,” Lark said dramatically, as she poised a butter knife over her breast. She waited until she had Janet’s full, horrified attention and pressed its dull point into her flesh. “My reputation, so sullied by the ultimate act of desecration, will make me the heroine of legend. Disappointed maidens will gather at my grave and throw flowers upon my head.”

Janet, looking from the knife to her scone, gave the barest glimmer of a smile. “Not roses, I hope. You know how they make you sneeze.”

“In any case, it could not matter, for I shall be rotting in the earth.”

“That is revolting, Lark. You sound as if you have been reading Italian novels.” Janet glanced over at the small desk in the corner of the Leicester drawing room, where Richardson’s
Clarissa
lay open. “Your situation is nothing as bad as novelists would devise.”

“Is it not? Do you not think rotting in the ground preferable to rotting in the house of a very ancient and infirm gentleman? Do you not think the feel of the dark earth must be more comforting than his hands upon me? I shall wake up ill every morning and pray for every night to end quickly.”

Janet said nothing, and Lark knew her dear friend shared her fear and revulsion.

“My own father is some years older than my mother,” Janet said comfortingly.

“Your father is not yet as old as my Lord Raeborn!” Lark cried and felt a renewed sense of despair. “He may die ere he begets a child on me, ere I reach my twenty-fifth birthday.”

“Then your troubles will be at an end, will they not?” Janet asked hopefully. “You should then be the Countess Raeborn
and have your own home and finances. You could do what you wished and marry whom you chose. It would not be so very bad.”

Lark paused for a moment’s reflection. “It is very wicked to imagine one’s happiness dependent upon the death of another, is it not? But if, in fact, I do not produce a little Raeborn, then neither will my happiness be complete. I should only be the dowager countess, for the estate would go to another.”

“Surely he would not oust you from your home.”

“Perhaps it would give him pleasure. It is Mr. Queensman.”

“Mr. Queensman? The doctor? But why do you think him ungenerous? He stood up to dance with you at Delphinium’s ball. And later, when you fainted, he proved himself most considerate and kind.”

“It is his profession, after all. And I am sure he danced with me out of a sense of obligation to John. For I keenly feel some disapproval there, something to set us off as opposites. When he learns I am to marry his cousin, his censure will be ever more intense.”

“Then you are to marry him?”

“Mr. Queensman?” Lark gasped.

Janet made a gesture of impatience. “Of course not. Lord Raeborn.”

Lark sank onto the chair at the desk and dropped her head wearily onto her elbows. Beneath her, the thick book she had been reading felt warm against her flesh.

“I cannot,” she said. “And yet I know not how to avoid it.”

“I assume a knife to the heart no longer seems a suitable option?”

Lark smiled. “I believe I love life too much to quit it, even if I am doomed to a dreadful marriage.”

“I am much relieved to hear it.”

“That I shall have a dreadful marriage?” Lark said.

Janet shot her a withering look. “It may not be as dreadful as you fear, dear Lark. After all, we know no ill of Lord Raeborn, and he may prove very kind and considerate. Even jovial. And if he behaves honorably, you must do the same.”

“I have often been admired for my acting abilities, and shall employ them to advantage in my marriage,” Lark answered solemnly. She looked down at the reddened palms of her hands and splayed her fingers like a lacy fan. Between them lay
Clarissa
, the tragic story of a young lady brought to ruin by her family’s cruelty. Abused by a man in whom she placed her trust, Clarissa never recovered from the mistreatment, and descended into a decline. Lark had not read more than five hundred pages of the book, but she already knew its heroine would die before its conclusion. Brooding about the tale, Lark fingered the pages and ran her hand over the sturdy leather spine. “I am a very good actress,” she said.

“So you are,” Janet acknowledged absently. “But I hope you are not contemplating an escape to the stage.”

Lark stood up, dizzy with the strength of her sudden resolution. With perfect clarity, she knew how she would avoid marriage to the odious Lord Raeborn and garner enough sympathy to redeem her shaky reputation. She would neither obey her father nor appear to defy him. And most important, she would be granted the reprieve she needed to set herself on course.

“I feel faint, Janet. I believe I am going to …” Lark crumpled to the ground at Janet’s feet.

“Dear God! Lark! Do you hear me?” Janet threw herself down and grasped Lark’s shoulders. “Do not move. I will call for your parents.”

Lark opened one eye, and felt a pang of guilt for tormenting her very best and truest friend. Janet sat back on her heels, openmouthed and utterly confused.

“I—I thought you were dead,” she gasped.

Lark pulled herself to a seated position and straightened her hair.

“Not even nearly so,” she said, feeling very satisfied with herself. “I only acted as if I were dead.”

Janet stared at her.

“Do you not understand, Janet? I shall escape this hateful marriage to Raeborn as Clarissa Harlowe avoided hers to Lovelace. I shall go into a decline, lie secluded in my chamber and make all sorts of pronouncements about the frailty of love and life.”

Janet did not look at all convinced.

“I shall refrain from eating, and take no exercise. I shall avoid all contact with society.”

“And you believe this to be a solution to your problem? I say it creates a greater one. I do not wish to spoil your surprise when you reach the conclusion of the book, but Clarissa indeed dies for her efforts,” Janet said as she pulled Lark to her feet.

Lark reached for her friend’s shoulders and shook her gently.

“But I shall not!” she said almost joyfully. “I shall merely be playacting at illness and pretend great deprivation of health.”

“And how long will you manage it? Do you not think Raeborn will merely wait on your recovery?”

Lark frowned. “I do not know. But he is a very old man and cannot be too patient. After all, he may not have much time in front of him. And besides, a sickly girl is not promising if one wishes an heir in a year’s time.”

“Your sisters will not be very happy to hear your plan.”

Lark looked at Janet in surprise, for she had not yet considered such complications. She loved Del, Columbine, Lily and Rose dearly, but could not be confident they would keep her deception a secret from their parents.

“Then they must not know of it, Janet. Only you will know the truth, and you must not tell a single soul.”

Janet shook her head, as she had through years of girlish pranks and mischief. Ever more cautious than Lark and not nearly so willful, she nevertheless always remained loyal.

“This is very serious, Lark. This is far beyond throwing your governess’s wig into the pond.”

“I know it only too well, dear Janet. It shall be the performance of my life.” Lark took a deep breath and contemplated the long and lonely months ahead of her. “But if I—we—succeed, my reward shall be the return of that life into my own safekeeping. Is it not worth the risk?”

Janet ran nervous fingers over her brow. “I sincerely hope so,” she said and sighed as if all the weight of the universe now lay upon her narrow shoulders.

Ben Queensman entered his cousin’s dark townhouse and sniffed the mustiness in the walls. A very unhealthy situation, he
thought to himself and decided to mention it to Raeborn. He scarcely knew the old man, but already he felt the bonds of kinship. And if the Leicester chit did not manage to produce an heir for him, those bonds would be even more keenly realized.

He looked around the hall, wondering where the servant had gone and if he ought to follow. After all, Raeborn had sent for him most urgently, and undoubtedly stood ready and waiting in one of the rooms nearby. He would not need to be announced.

Footsteps approached, and Ben could just make out the silhouette of the servant at the opposite end of the hall. The man hesitated but said nothing, and then passed through a door to the right.

Ben waited a polite interval, then followed. He heard the sound of talking, in a man’s falsetto voice, and wondered if he was about to interrupt a little scene of lovemaking. Raeborn seemed to be speaking endearments in a hushed voice, making little chirping sounds.

Slowly, Ben approached the door, having no desire to enter into such a scene. His cousin was free to marry whomever he pleased, and Ben wished him all the best, but somehow, inexplicably, the thought of Raeborn with the beautiful red-haired girl troubled him beyond measure. He could not say why.

The door stood ajar, and Ben paused on the threshold to glance within. Raeborn stood over a wicker cage, waving his fingers about and making little kissing noises over the bars. A little blue budgie hopped about excitedly and flapped its clipped wings in appreciation of all the attention it received.
Ben stepped through the door and cleared his throat.

“Did you wish to see me, my lord?”

“Ah, excellent, Queensman! I did indeed, for I did not know where else to turn.” Raeborn passed a little sprig of greenery to the bird, who promptly dropped it into a water dish.

“I am honored, sir, for we are only recently acquainted as kinsmen.”

Raeborn waved. Ben’s words away dismissively. “Yes, yes, there is that, though much was lost when your grandfather decided to change the family name to Queensman. So common! The
age-old deference due the name of de la Reine suggests a greater sensibility on the part of my branch of the family.”

“It is only a name,” Ben said firmly. “Blood runs a good deal truer.”

“So they say. But I have not brought you here to discuss the elevated branches of our family tree.”

“Indeed, my lord?” Ben asked in surprise.

“It is to discuss my marriage to Lady Larkspur. There is a problem.”

Ben had thought there might be, for if the lady were as willful and spoiled as reputed, she would not go happily into the arms of such a one as his cousin. Undoubtedly some persuasion would be in order, or supplication from Raeborn’s emissaries. Uneasily, Ben imagined he knew for what purpose Raeborn invited him to his home.