Sweet Bargain (15 page)

"Hmph," came the reply.

Nick knew that tone. Without saying a word Farre always managed to let Nick know when he was guilty of some folly. He had heard that "Hmph" often in the three weeks since he had declared himself betrothed to Bel Shaw.

"Lower now, lad, easy," said Farre.

Nick slowly lowered his chin, putting the final crease in the simple folds of the cravat. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It might be madness to hold Bel Shaw to a marriage she did not want, but he had heard enough of the gossip about them to remain fixed on his course.

When he opened his eyes, Farre was watching him closely. For once Nick wished his friend a trifle less shrewd. He pulled his coat from the open wardrobe and handed it to Farre, then turned and extended his arms to slip the jacket on, glad for the excuse to avoid his friend's scrutiny. "What am I going to do about the dancing?" he asked lightly.

"Tell her the truth." Farre slipped the sleeves of the jacket over Nick's hands.

"I'd look a proper fool."

"Limp."

Farre lifted the jacket and Nick shrugged into it. He tried a few lopsided steps and gave it up. "I would forget which foot soon enough."

"Lie."

"Now there's a suggestion in keeping with my character," Nick said dryly. He turned to the mirror and caught a glimpse of his friend's knowing face. "My bride is not precisely eager for this ceremony," he admitted.

"She didn't run away," Farre pointed out. He smoothed the line of Nick's coat.

Nick considered that. It was true, she hadn't.

"Did she kiss you back?"

"What ..."

"I won't ask you how you persuaded a girl who would neither look at you nor speak to you in the village not days before, to be walking a dark path with you in the squire's garden. But you must know the whole county's been talking about it for weeks."

"I know."

"So did she kiss you back?"

Nick studied his reflection in the glass. She had kissed him back that night in the garden. Twice. He had evoked the memory often to hold his doubts at bay. Of course, those kisses had also ruined his sleep. "She did," he said.

"So," said his friend, "you've put the cart before the horse. Time to put things right. You've got to court the girl."

Nick pulled his watch from the little pocket of his waistcoat and consulted it. "Time to wed her, Farre," he said coolly. "The time to court her has passed." He turned from his friend, picked up his gloves, and left the dressing room.

He gave an approving glance to his bedroom. Paint, carpeting, and new hangings had made the place quite comfortable in three weeks. Next door another chamber, similarly renewed, was fitted up for his bride. He could have no hesitation about bringing her here from her family's fine house. But, looking at the bed, with its gray silk hangings, he could not deny what he dreamed of.

Farre's voice coming from the open door behind Nick stopped him. "Thinking of the marriage bed, lad?"

Nick didn't turn. "Am I breathing?"

"Best not to think of it until you court the lady some," said his friend.

"Farre." Nick faced the other man. "My groom can't be telling ..."

"But,
your lordship
," said Farre, "today I'm not your groom, I'm your
uncle
, which I'll thank you to remember." He paused and brushed imaginary lint from the sleeves of his coat. "And that allows me to give you a bit of wedding advice, you see. And besides, you'll be needing this." Farre held out a small maroon velvet box, which Nick recognized as the jeweler's box containing the plain gold band he had purchased for Bel Shaw.

"Now, whatever ideas your parents might have given you about love in marriage ..." Farre went on.

Nick laughed. "Love? In marriage?"

"They must have told you something."

"Farre, there was no need. I
saw
. And there was a widow, who was willing to instruct ..."

"But you saw it twisted, lad, in greed and revenge. It's love that's got to pull that particular cart, you see."

"And if Bel Shaw finds she can't love me?"

"She will if you let her, if she's free to love you."

Nick met his friend's gaze. There was nothing there to be angry at, only a truth told in kindness. "If I free her, she's not likely to see me or speak to me again."

"You won't know until you try it."

Nick took the box from Farre's hand and opened it. He stared at the band he meant to put on Bel Shaw's finger. "Then I won't know today," he said.

Lengthening bars of shade from towering elms along the edge of the Upper Ashe stretched across the lawns of Shaw House nearly to the wedding party. Nick had been watching their advance for hours.

"I daresay you will think us all quite odd, Lord Haverly," said the woman at his side. "Not Tom, of course, and it is too bad that you cannot meet him, but the rest of us are so used to this ... this unsettled way. And one does grow accustomed to it. I could tell you when I first ..."

Just then a small boy and girl in wrinkled white finery with telltale strawberry stains on their collars and sleeves raced between Nick and Mary Shaw, wailing and startling Mrs. Shaw into shouting, "Sarah, Kit!" and momentarily, at least, forgetting whatever she had been about to confide to Nick about the experience of marrying into so large a family. Then the butter-colored Shaw dog skidded into the narrow opening between them, stopped briefly to bark excitedly, jumped straight in the air twice, and ran off in pursuit of the children.

"Oh, dear, my lord, you must excuse me, I must see what my children are up to now." And with that Mrs. Mary Shaw courtsied and, resolutely lifting her skirts for flight, dashed off across the grass herself.

Nick was left standing alone again. The sudden intrusion of small children and large dogs was just the sort of occurrence that seemed to characterize all his encounters with the Shaws. One minute he would be listening to some account of family history, and the next the speaker would have yielded to one of dozens of surrounding distractions and quit, gone off, taken up another topic.

It was at these moments that Nick heard the voices around him fade into whispers, saw heads turn away, saw Darlington at ease, laughing among the Shaws. Each time he would stiffen, would feel the sharp points of his collar against the tightened muscles of his jaw. And he would look for Bel. She was avoiding him. Of that there was no doubt. And he knew why. At the brief, sanctioned meeting of their lips in the church, passion had flared between them scandalously hot, leaving them shaky and robbed of breath. And in the moment afterwards their unguarded eyes had confessed it.

His gaze found her. She stood in one of the bright bars of sunlight, the golden beams caught in the netting of her veil, the satin of her dress gilded. He watched as she pulled a white rose from the garland about her head and handed it to her sister. And he wanted to pluck Bel Shaw from the center of her family and carry her to Courtland. Farre's words came back to him.
"Court her."

Diana skipped off, and Bel looked up to find her husband's dark eyes on her again. Even across the wide expanse of lawn his gaze started the trembling in her. And with his kiss in the church he had unsettled all that she had settled perfectly the night before.

It had been so clear as she wrote to Tom that she was merely fulfilling the expectations that had always shaped her life and with no sacrifice to her comfort and little to her affections. If she felt a little uneasy, it was only that the unchanging character of village life had led her to believe she, too, was unchanging, and that the suddenness of her betrothal and marriage hardly allowed for the necessary imagining of a new role for herself as some other woman—Lady Haverly. She had concluded that the ceremony in the church would not really alter anything. It would leave her herself. She would merely change her address, have an increased allowance to spend, and join the earl for dinner more often than not.

Then he had kissed her in the church, and she had had a sudden heart-stopping feeling that everything had changed, that if she let him kiss her as he wanted to, she would never be herself again. It had been scary, that kiss in the church, her first kiss since her mother had explained the intimacy of the marriage bed. It had made her heart race and her pulses pound and had stopped her from easy speech with the images it had conjured. She had needed then to surround herself with her family, with people she knew, to hold the earl off. So from the vestry, to the carriage, to her parents' house, she had found others to talk and laugh with.

But wherever she went his eyes followed her, dark with longing. Now as she met that gaze, she saw he meant to cross to her. She looked about for someone to turn to and saw Auggie, his hands in his pockets, sullenly kicking a stone across the lawn. She stole one quick glance at the earl and stepped into Auggie's path. He halted and scowled at her, returning his attention to the stone at his feet.

"Auggie," she said, "won't you wish me well today?" He remained maddeningly silent, and she tried again. "Soon we will be fishing together as we always have."

"Not likely," he said, still looking at the stone he kicked between his feet. "Your husband's not going to allow any more Shaws near his stream."

"Well, he'll have to, if he's my husband and cares about my happiness, for I shall want to see my family often."

"Well, he won't. He's too high in the instep for the likes of us." He raised his head and glared in the earl's direction. "He didn't bring one person from his own family here to meet us."

"But he did. He brought Mr. Farre, a quiet, but pleasant gentleman." Bel turned to follow Auggie's stare. The man she spoke of had stopped the earl several yards from where she and Auggie stood. The two were shaking hands, and then the older man embraced the earl in a hearty and clearly fond way. The scene had all the earmarks of a farewell.

"That fellow?" said Auggie. "That's Haverly's groom."

"His groom? What do you mean?"

"Do you think I don't know? And other folks, too? I met him that day we took the pony cart to Courtland. Darlington knows, he'll tell you. That's no uncle."

Bel considered. There had to be some explanation other than the one Auggie had come to. "If the earl wanted him here today, that can be no insult to us," she suggested.

"That's not what you said before, Bel," he burst out, lifting rebellious blue eyes to hers. "You wanted him to go away, and he would have too, if you'd not
kissed
him and said you'd marry him. Things won't ever be the same, and it's your fault, Bel." Auggie gave the stone at his feet a savage kick that sent it bounding out into deeper grass, and ran off.

She was still staring after him when the earl spoke at her side.

"What is it, Miss ... Bel?" He was speaking in that kind tone which had proved so fatal to her judgment the night of the squire's ball.

"Who is Mr. Farre?" It was suddenly important to ask.

He did not answer, but glanced away toward the house, where she could see Farre shaking hands with her father. Nearer to them, Aunt Margaret approached with the hasty steps and earnest countenance of a woman with an errand.

Slowly the earl turned back to her, "He's—"

"My dears," called Aunt Margaret, "I've been sent to ... to . .." She paused and drew a breath. "Well, I
will
think why I've come. I hope everyone had enough to eat. I hope you did, your lordship. I'm sorry there wasn't more tongue. Men like a good tongue in red currant on a warm evening."

"Everyone had more, than enough to eat," Bel assured her aunt, glancing at her husband to see if he were enjoying Aunt Margaret's unintended innuendo. His eyes did not light with pleasure, and Bel faltered. "Even ... the earl would say so, wouldn't you, my lord?" she asked. He had used her name, but she could not bring herself to use his.

"More than enough, Mrs. Shaw," came the stiff reply.

"Well, I'm so very glad to hear you say so, my lord," said Aunt Margaret, "for no doubt you are used to such grandeur that our dinner seems very poor, although I am sure, in general, Serena's cook presents a very fine table."

"Aunt Margaret, everything was just as it should be," said Bel.

Aunt Margaret sighed. "Yes, dear, it was a lovely wedding. But so sad Tom could not be here. My lord," she continued, turning to the earl, "it is too bad Bel's brother Tom is not here. He's the one in the family you should meet."

"So I've been told," answered the earl.

"So much wit in that boy, and such address."

"So I've been told."

"Of course we're sorry that he can't be here, but he must stay with his ship."

"Yes, ma'am," said the earl.

Bel cast him a quick glance. He was barely civil. She thought his shirt points must be stabbing his arrogant jaw. Aunt Margaret did not show to advantage under his frowning stare, and she certainly deserved his courtesy. After all, he had dined at her table, and he must see how eager she was to please him. Maybe Auggie was right about the absence from their wedding of any true member of the house of Seymour.

Gently Bel asked her aunt about the errand she had mentioned.

"Oh, yes, of course, I remember, the dancing. I came to tell you that you are wanted to start the dancing," she said.

Nick felt a distinct sinking in the pit of his stomach. For just a moment there he had been tempted to speak frankly to his bride, to explain his need for the company of a loyal friend. Now, he must consider what lie could possibly excuse him from the dancing. He offered an arm to each of his companions, and they began to stroll toward the hall, Mrs. Charles Shaw taking up again her apologies for the inadequate banquet they'd long since consumed and adding her hopes that the supper fare would compensate for any earlier disappointments.

Where the lawn encountered the flagstones of the terrace, Charles Shaw stepped out of a crowd of uncles and cousins to claim his wife.

"My dear," he said to her, taking her arm, "have you been asking Bel and her groom to doubt their enjoyment of the wedding feast?"

"Oh, Charles, not for a minute, though I do think there should have been more tongue. No, I was merely saying how sorry I was that Tom isn't there."