Taming of Annabelle (11 page)

‘Why, I will be married to you, my sweeting.’

‘I mean, will you be rejoining your regiment?’

The Marquess looked thoughtfully at the fire and gave a little sigh. ‘I suppose my days of fighting are over,’ he said. ‘I would love to be in at the kill when we finally drive
the French over the Pyrenees. But I will be a married man, and then, added to that, there are the responsibilities of my estates. I cannot remain an absentee landlord all my life.’

‘The war cannot go on forever,’ said Annabelle, throwing her head back in a noble way that was reminiscent of the old Minerva. ‘If you would rather fight for your country than
stay with me, I will understand.’

He held her hand in a tighter clasp. ‘You are an amazing girl, Annabelle. The war has many hardships, but . . .’

He fell silent, remembering the rough sedge mats spread out under the trees at night, the accoutrements hanging from the branches, the bundle of fine branches to lie on and the green sod for a
pillow. Remembering the screech from the bullock carts laden with the maggot-infested bodies of the dead or dying; remembering the mad exhilaration of battle and the comradeship of his men.

‘But it is no place for a woman,’ laughed Annabelle.

‘Oh, there are women enough.’

‘But
such
women!’

‘No, I do not mean camp followers. I mean the wives – particularly the Irish wives. Incredible bravery and fortitude.

‘There was a laundress called Biddy whose husband, Dan, was a soldier in the 34th. We were retreating last winter and the French were hard at our heels.

‘Her husband was wounded and he dropped down by the roadside saying he could go no further. She told him to get on her back and she would carry him, but the man refused to part with either
his knapsack or his firelock. She knew the French would be on them soon, and so, in desperation, she decided to carry the lot. I can still remember her Irish brogue. She said, “Well,
sir, I went away wid him on me back, knapsack, firelock and all, as strong as Samson for the fear I was in, an’ fegs, I carried him half a league after the regiment into the bivwack;
an’ me back was bruck entirely from that time to this, an’ it’ll never get strait till I go to the Holy Well in Ireland, and have Father McShane’s blessin’, an’
his hands laid over me!”’

Annabelle eyed her beloved nervously. Was he hinting that
she
should follow the drum?

‘There are no
ladies
who go to war!’ she exclaimed.

‘Well,’ he laughed, ‘women like that laundress are very great ladies in my opinion. But if you mean ladies of quality, yes, most certainly. The most famous beauty we have to
lighten our days is the former Juanita Maria de los Dolores de Leon. After the capture of Bajadoz, two ladies, sisters, both of them Spanish, threw themselves on the mercy of the British. Juanita
was fifteen and the most beautiful creature anyone had ever seen. Two days later she was married to Captain Harry Smith of the Rifles, and, since then, she has been the darling of the army, sharing
all our adventures and hardships.’

Annabelle became more than ever convinced that he expected her to volunteer to join him. For a moment she indulged in a brief dream in which she became the heroine and darling of the British
army herself, but then Lord Sylvester’s face swam into her mind, and she set her lips in a stubborn line.

‘I do not think mama’s health could stand the shock if I were to go to war with you,’ she said.

‘I would not let you,’ he laughed. ‘You are not the stuff that heroines are made of. I mean, heroines of war,’ he added hastily.

‘Then you will rejoin your regiment?’

‘Give me time,’ he said slowly. ‘No one expects me to rush back so soon after my wedding. Enough of this talk of war. You have not kissed me, my love.’

‘Oh, we must not!’ said Annabelle hastily. ‘I am not chaperoned and Mice has left the door open, you see, and someone might come in or Minerva might return.’

‘Annabelle, my love, I would swear you are afraid of me.’

Annabelle hung her head. ‘Merely shy,’ she whispered.

‘Pre-wedding nerves,’ he said sympathetically. He raised her hand and kissed it. ‘I am prepared to wait till we are married. You will find me very patient.’

‘Thank you,’ said Annabelle, feling quite miserable with guilt. He looked so handsome, so
caring
, those strange eyes of his golden in the firelight.

‘My parents are dead, as you know,’ he said, releasing her hand and searching in one of his pockets. ‘But these belong to the Marchionesses of Brabington.’ He handed her
a flat box.

Annabelle slowly opened it. An attractive and colourful antique necklace and brooch glittered and sparkled up at her in the light. It was made in the Renaissance style with a design of blue and
white scrolls and crimson annular motifs, set with rubies, diamonds and baroque pearl drops.

‘Come over to the looking glass and see how it looks,’ he urged.

Annabelle arose reluctantly. She handed him the box and stood like an obedient child while he fastened the jewels about her neck.

She stood very still, feeling the heavy weight of the necklace against her bosom. With the weight of the jewels came the terrible weight of the reality of marriage. In all her dreams of Lord
Sylvester she had ignored, until now, the fact that Peter, Marquess of Brabington, was in love with her. And he was convinced she was in love with him.

Annabelle’s better self, long dormant, rose to the surface. The wedding must be called off. Father would horsewhip her. There would never be any Season for her after the storm of shame had
subsided. With luck, she might eventually marry some unassuming county gentleman.

‘Well?’ he said teasingly. ‘You are very quiet.’

She swung around to face him.

‘Peter,’ she said, ‘there is something I must tell you . . .’

‘Annabelle!’ came a joyful cry from the hall. The drawing-room door burst open and Minerva sailed in. ‘Look who I found on the doorstep!’

Following her came Lord Sylvester Comfrey.

‘Peter, my boy,’ he said. ‘You look fit. Well, here we all are. All ready to meet at the altar.’ He caught Minerva to him with an arm around her waist and she turned a
laughing face up to him.

Jealousy, horrible, green-eyed, scaled and clawed, raged through Annabelle and she put a possessive hand on the Marquess’s arm.

‘See what Peter has given me? Aren’t they superb?’

She laughed and pirouetted in front of them, while Minerva laughed as well to see her sister so happy and the Marquess looked on with an indulgent smile.

‘I shall be the most pampered bride in London,’ said Annabelle breathlessly. She stretched up and kissed the Marquess on the cheek. As she turned back, she caught a look of worry and
pain in Lord Sylvester’s green eyes and then it was gone.

A heady feeling of triumph rose up in her. He
cared.
He was jealous. She would go through with this marriage, since both she and Sylvester were honour bound to keep their promises.

But after. Ah, then! That would be a different story.

‘Here’s all my love birds,’ cried Lady Godolphin, waddling into the room and dispensing an aroma of bonhomie and musk. ‘Oh, what a pretty necklace, Annabelle,’ said
her ladyship, coming closer to examine the jewels. ‘Antique, I see. Is it Middle Evil?’

‘No, my lady,’ said the Marquess, ‘I think it is a copy of a Renaissance design. It is only about a hundred years old.’

‘I have some Running Essence earrings which will go very well with that,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘You may have them as a wedding gift. Has Colonel Brian called?’

‘Not as far as I know, my lady,’ said Annabelle, flashing Minerva a mocking look.

Minerva frowned back in a warning kind of way. Lord Sylvester thought, ‘Minerva has told that little minx of a sister of hers about Colonel Brian’s marriage. Oh, dear vicar, where
are you with that horsewhip of yours? And why do you always only
threaten
to use it? My friend’s heart is shortly to be smashed and there is nothing I can do but watch.’ Lord
Sylvester stood lost in thought while the others chatted around him. The Reverend Charles Armitage was an amazingly perceptive man, he reflected. He was often self-centred to a fault. His religion
was more fox-hunting than Church of England. But he did seem to have an uncanny knack of handling his daughters.

Annabelle chattered brightly, fighting her awakened conscience. She calmed it by vowing to try to make the Marquess a good wife.

She would steal what moments she could in Lord Sylvester’s company, surely not too much to ask of the fickle gods, and that way her days to come would not be plagued by overmuch guilt.

She schooled herself to watch Lord Sylvester only when she was sure she herself was not being observed. Often his green eyes met hers with that strange unwinking catlike stare of his.

The wedding was still two whole weeks away. No need to worry about it now.

But somehow after that night the days streamed past, multi-coloured days full of pinnings and fittings and bustle. Mr and Mrs Armitage and the rest of the girls arrived,
creating more turmoil. Again, Annabelle found herself always surrounded by people when she was with her fiancé, and she only caught a few rare glimpses of Lord Sylvester, but they were
enough to fuel her passion, his very absences making her heart quite crazy.

She thought about him and dreamed about him constantly.

Even the wedding rehearsals in St George’s, Hanover Square, had a strange dreamlike feeling.

The church is massive, square and ugly with a steeple placed above a Greek portico. But the aristocracy considered it the
only
church to be married in – that is if one insisted on
being married in church. It was here in 1791 that the elderly Sir William Hamilton married the beautiful Emma Hart, the daughter of a blacksmith, entirely illiterate, who passed from one lover to
another and was finally sold to Sir William by his nephew Charles Greville. But Sir William did marry her, and, to Emma at twenty-six, the marriage to her elderly diplomat must have appeared the
culmination of her life. But she was to go on to scandalize the nation by her affair with Lord Nelson to whom she became ‘my dearest beloved Emma and the true friend of my bosom’.

Hanover Square itself, although nearly a hundred years old – it was built in 1718 – was considered a fashionable and modern address.

Fashionable London was already beginning to move westward when George I arrived from Germany. The district west of Regent Street was still being spoken of as ‘suburban territories’
when the Square was built and named after the first Hanoverian monarch.

Not so far beyond the confines of the square sprawled another world of poverty and violence and disease, but the Armitage family were protected from this by virtue of their elegant place of
residence.

Madame Verné’s establishment was up two flights of stairs in Piccadilly, not far from Watier’s, that famous Dandy club where Brummell and his cronies were to be found.

It was perhaps fitting that the well-known dressmaker should have her business in a street named after a fashion.

In the reign of Charles I, wrist bands made of pointed lace known as peccadilles were very fashionable. And Piccadilly gets its name from a shop in that famous thoroughfare where peccadilles
were sold.

Unlike some other famous society dressmakers, Madame Verné did not believe in wasting money on expensive surroundings and her little showroom was stark in its simplicity.

Annabelle would have liked Madame Verné to attend her at Hanover Square, but Madame Verné, since she was to furnish the bridesmaids’ dresses as well as the bride’s gown
at top speed, preferred the Armitage sisters to come to her. Annabelle was impressed by the various other grand ladies who came to call, and would have liked to appear dignified, but it was very
hard with Deirdre and Daphne romping around, giggling and sticking each other with pins, and Frederica perpetually wailing that she wanted to go home.

To Annabelle, the day of the wedding meant all the world to her. It was to be her debut, her performance of a lifetime. And although she would not be one of the unfortunates who were married off
to old men for their title and wealth against their will, she was marrying for the reason that most young girls of her age married; apart from the overriding one of jealousy it was the only career
open to a woman.

To marry well was to succeed in life. And like most girls of her age and upbringing, she never paused to consider what marriage really entailed.

Young ladies of the gentry and the aristocracy could be excused for not considering their future married lives to hold any fears of claustrophobic intimacy.

A gentleman’s life was full of interests which did not include the society of women – cock fighting, prize fights, hunting, curricle races, clubs and coffee houses and gambling, and
fashionable courtesans and politics.

One merchant, anxious to emulate the ways of society, but unwilling to keep a fashionable courtesan, went so far as to make his wife appear to be his mistress, and they spent many happily
married years each playing their strange roles.

Virtue was not fashionable. To be Exclusive was all. The fear that Britain might find herself in the throes of a revolution such as had happened in France had gradually ebbed away and so the
absentee landlords were back at the gambling tables, throwing away money that should have gone into their lands and property.

From time to time, both gentlemen and ladies alike were reminded of the realities of the outside world. Every time there was another victory in Spain, the mob would take to the streets,
discharging firearms, overturning coaches and setting them alight, and attacking any houses that did not have lamps or candles shining in celebration – for there was a war party and an
anti-war party in Parliament and the mob could gain easy money, hurling stones in support of the one or the other.

It was not fashionable to work, and from the floor of Almack’s to the bow window of White’s, one fought for a place among the ranks of the elegantly idle.