The Abandoned Bride (10 page)

Then the gentleman broke from his immobility. He held up his own shaking hand and examined it as though it were an alien thing.

“I have never done such a thing before,” he said in wonderment, “never. Only a brute would strike a woman. Whatever the cause, no man can do such a thing and not feel shame. I can scarcely believe it of myself. I would never call such a man friend, yet now it transpires that I am such a man. There can be no excuse. Forgive me,” he said earnestly, “for I had no right. It was not right to do, and I am deeply ashamed.”

She looked at him and then lowered her own hand so that the
red mark up
o
n her cheek was clearly visible. There was a small flicker of light in her eyes as she saw him wince.

“No,” she said clearly, “I shall not.”

“But I offer you my sincerest apologies,” he said in bewilderment, “it ought never to have happened. Please understand that such deeds are repugnant to me.”

“I understand that,”
Julia
replied steadily, “but I do not accept your apology. For it was not given to me, sir.
It was, instead, given solely to yourself. You are deeply shamed,” she went on with cold mockery,
“
you
cannot believe it of yo
u
rself.
You
find such deeds repugnant to y
ou
rself. That is no apology to me. Forgive yourself, then, if you can, but I cannot.

“But how can you even beg my pardon?” she asked, “when you do not know me? And what can that pardon be worth when you clearly hold me in such low esteem? I am only some insensate creature you have procured for your own purposes. If you could so readily deceive me, manipulate my future, and attempt to ruin my name, why should you stick at manhandling me? It is all of a piece,” she concluded bitter
l
y. “I see no incongruity in your actions, my lord.
”

He dropped his hand to his side and shrugged his shoulders in an inchoate gesture of
futility.
Now, for the first time since she had met him, the baron did not seem so implacable, such a relentless figure of authority. For without his armor of surety and cynicism, he seemed somehow both more youthful and more human. Julia decided to put what seemed to be a momentary lapse upon his part to the test.

“
Lord Stafford ... my lord,” she said softly, “may I go home now?”

He hardly seemed to attend her words. But then he spoke. “Ah,” he sighed heavily, “I wish you could. But, no, no, you may not. I would wish,” he said quietly, “that Robin had fixed his attention upon any other female as earnestly as you do. But he did not. And so, while I know I have begun what, believe me, I hope will be a very brief association, upon the wrong foot, I cannot end it as yet. No, you must stay. But for what it is worth, I promise you no further injury. Indeed,” he said with a bit more of his former manner, as a skewed smile appeared on his lips, “you may have my word that if I forget myself so much again as to attempt you any harm, you may then leave immediately, at whatever time it may be, or wherever we may happen to be at that time. But more than that, I cannot give you.
”

“Now,” he said more briskly, “I suggest you go to your own room. I will have you shown there, I believe it is a pleasant chamber. It’s been a long journey for you, and I imagine that you will be pleased to have luncheon alone in your room and then get some deserved rest.”

Before Julia could think he was exhibiting uncharacteristic kindness, he added, “I shall expect you at dinner, however. We will dine together at eight, as we have travel plans to discuss. I expect you precisely at eight, Miss Hastings. Your failure to be there will, of course, result in my notifying my agents in England to take certain actions, just as I stated before.”

Julia nodded, and without speaking one other word, went to the door that he held open politely for her to pass through.

It was a bright, clear day and he had thought to accomplish many small chores before evening arrived. But Lord Nicholas Davent
r
y, Baron Stafford, instead paced within a close, closed parlor on the ground floor of Quillack’s Hotel and covered almost as many miles within those snug boundaries as he might have done if he had been out upon the busy streets of Calais.

He needed time to order his thoughts and he was unused to lengthy bouts of self-criticism. He was not known by any of his many friends or acquaintances for being given to intense, prolonged periods of introspection. Indeed, had any of them chanced to see him as he paced the narrow parlor, his actions and demeanor would have been as unrecognizable to them as they were to himself now. But then he had not, he admitted, been himself in any fashion since the onset of his acquaintance with Miss Hastings.

If she had been ceaselessly acting a part since they had met, he thought with a fierce frown, then so had he. But it was harder for him, he thought with displeasure, his face taking on an even deeper expression of gloom, for he was unused to such charades. Oh, he had, in his time, been required to simulate certain emotions and enthusiasms above the common; if one were to occasionally act as courier or gatherer of information in the services of one’s country, then that was inevitable. But even his superiors never thought to ask him to perform more dire,
c
landestine deeds. For though it would come as a great
shock to Miss Hastings, the Baron Stafford was popularly known as a pleasant, witty, and amiable fellow. Devious fellows like the Marquess of Bessacarr or the Viscount North would do for deeds requiring stealth, but Lord Stafford had such charming, easy ways it was generally agreed that he clearly had more of the makings of a diplomat than of a spy.

Before he had met Julia, the only time he had inspired terror in a feminine heart was when his observer thought he might not chance to notice her presence. If the sight of his physical person was the stuff of her nightmares, it was the heady stuff of rather more exciting dreams of the numerous other females who came within his orbit. And if he had behaved in a sarcastic, cold, and brutal manner toward Julia, then she at least had the signal honor of being the first female he had ever treated so.

For Nicholas Daventry had been surrounded by females since the moment of his birth, and he liked them very well. As an only son, arriving long after the birth of four daughters and shortly before the death of his father, his life had always seemed to be filled with caring women. Having all that constant, loving attention lavished upon him, plus the advantages of being heir to handsome looks and fortune, he might well have grown up to be the sort of self-satisfied fellow who expects devotion from women, rather than appreciating it.

It was only the happy fact that his mother remarried when he was four years of age, he often thought gratefully, and married a wise and patient man, that saved him from drowning in self
-
esteem. For his stepfather, a thoughtful man, had taught him to understand that love, unlike money, was more enjoyable if it was earned and returned and not simply taken and spent. It was his stepfather who had also gently prized him away from his adoring mother and sisters and arranged that he be educated at school, so that he might learn how to act in the company of men as well as women.

But there was one small, smug vanity that his wise stepfather did not think to save him from. For Nicholas came to young manhood secure in the belief that he knew womankind very well. He was firm in his absolute trust and faith in the essential goodness of their entire gender. It was a conviction that was to cost him dearly and change the course of his orderly life.

Had he disliked women or even felt superior to them as so many of his classmates did, then his stepfather would have no doubt corrected him in his fault. But the usually sagacious gentleman never thought to explain that it made little difference whether one judged any class of people innately superior or inferior to oneself, since such blanket judgments are always wrong. Young Nicholas respected and admired women, but in his indiscriminate affection for them he made the fatal error of forgetting that they were no better than his fellow men and were subject to the same human
frailties
.

And so, when at nineteen years of age, he met up with Miss Ivy Foster, he quite naturally made a complete fool of himself.

Ivy was an adorable madcap. From the moment he met her quite by chance while idling about town with some of his schoolmates, he was enraptured by her. However, he believed that he harbored few illusions about her. Since she agreed to walk out with him without a proper introduction, never permitted him to meet her parents, and never hesitated to meet him alone, he assumed she had no place in society and little care for its proprieties. In this, he was quite right.

And when their relationship went speedily from innocent diversions upon the streets of the town to far more worldly occupations upon the sheets of a rented bed, he assumed that she was a child of nature who gave freely when love was given. In this, he was absolutely wrong.

It was not that he was blinded by her charms, although he was decidedly enthralled by them. For at nineteen, he thought himself fairly sophisticated in that area. Before he had ever met her, his schoolmates had helpfully advised him as to how to supplement his formal education. Like so many other noble young gentleman, he had been taken on a few excursions to certain houses of a certain nature to learn some practical lessons in human biology. These private sessions had afforded him the opportunity to make a delicious discovery: that females were even more wondrous creatures than he had first realized. Not only could they provide a fellow with company and care, as he knew so well, but they had this other delightful ability to provide the most exquisite pleasure with their own physical persons.

But the joys one could experience during a night on the town in the company of several half-sprung young cronies, with an unknown female as partner, were as nothing when compared to that which one could achieve with a loved one. For young
Nicholas found that not only was there simple pleasure to be found in a lover’s arms, there was the infinite pleasure of providing pleasure to a loved one as well. In very short order, Nicholas decided that he loved his merry little Ivy, and since he loved her, she must be his forever.

It was not guilt for his seduction of her that spurred his offer. Even though she was his junior by a year, he knew he was not the first to love her, and some small question remained in his mind as to who had initiated whose seduction in the first place. He was disappointed and regretted her lapse when he became aware of her previous loss of virtue, but he could not blame her in the least, not after he heard the tale she told. He quite understood how such a vulnerable girl could have been misled by an elderly, fatherly gentleman, as she had been, and he grieved for the betrayal of her innocence just as she did. No, it was not honor which prompted him, it was simply that he adored her.

He knew that she was exactly right for him. He needed her blithe spirits, just as she needed someone to protect and watch over her. Her buoyant temperament would please his mama, her sense of humor would tickle his sisters, and her black cherry eyes and midnight ringlets would enchant his steppapa. He believed that her low birth would be no impediment. His family could never be so top-lofty, he told her, and as they loved him, so they would allow him to wed where he loved.

So he was completely shattered when they not only did not condone his engagement to her, but demanded his immediate estrangement from her as well. He left her then, but only so that he could travel to his home to have it out with them. She refused to accompany him, and he could not blame her. He was sure, though, that once he had explained the matter in person, they would certainly understand. But though he explained, then raged, then importuned, then frankly demanded, they would not budge. He was too young, they said when he arrived. And he was too young, they maintained as he left them in insult.

At nineteen years of age, Lord Nicholas Daventry, Baron Stafford, left his school, renounced his loving family, moved into rented lodgings with his lover, and waited for his family to capitulate. Ivy would not wed him, she said sorrowfully, without their approval. That she would not do so without their generous allowance and with their stated threat of his being deprived of his future fortune as well was a possibility which never occurred to him.

Letters from his sisters did not change his mind. Advice from concerned friends did not move him. Lack of funds did not swerve him. He loved, as he did all else, with his whole heart. It was only when he arrived at their little flat one day to find Ivy humming as she packed, that his idyll came to an abrupt end. For, she explained simply, there was neither future nor profit in their association any longer. As he sat on their bed and dumbly watched her stow her belongings, she taught him the lesson his stepfather had neglected to deliver. And that was that females could be fully as deceitful, avaricious, and unprincipled as men were capable of being.

She could not waste her time, Ivy explained seriously. London could afford her greater opportunities to seek her fortune while the bloom of her youth was yet upon her. She did not blame him, she said handsomely, for there was no fault in it for either of them. Even her ideal, Harriet Wilson, she confided, that sage queen of the demireps, had at one time absolutely frittered away two entire years waiting for some young lover’s family to come about, and only when she was convinced they never would did she at last quit the fruitless relationship. “For Nick,” she said quite seriously as she snapped together her traveling case, “we can’t be fools. What is love without money?”

It was a very thorough lesson, given by a gentle instructress. And it was an expensive one. Not so much in monetary terms, for though Ivy considered the amount of money given to her by his stepfather for her cooperation to be a princely sum, it was exceedingly little to pay to buy a young man’s freedom from destruction. But if the cost were reckoned in terms of his loss of dignity, face, and confidence, then it was indeed a king’s, rather than
a mere baron’s, ransom.

Nicholas Daventry returned to school, returned to the bosom of his family, and returned to his senses so much so that he could eventually even jest about his youthful folly. But he never did return to his previous self. He became a man: a gentleman in the best construction of the word, a credit to his name, a patriot, a sportsman, a staple of the ton, a staunch friend, and a devoted son. He remained a considerate lover. But he never loved again.

He had a reputation for being wise in the ways of women. His mistresses were always up to snuff, being either accredited society beauties whose husbands gave them leave to indulge in discreet affairs, or Cyprians of the highest rank and taste. But he always knew their price, and they always knew their place.

He planned to marry soon, for he was approaching his thirtieth year and wished to set up his nursery. He liked children very well. In fact, he had his eye upon the Incomparable of the Season, a certain Honorable Miss Merriman. But if this present business took him from her for too long, he knew she might well opt for George Ronan, Earl of Cowes, who was paying particular attentions, or an old acquaintance of his, Sir Reginald Beverly, who was paying particularly close inattentions. Still, if she were snapped up by either of them before he returned, he contented himself that there would be another Season, ruled by another equally suitable Incomparable. For he had learned his lesson well, and was careful of his reputation for being wise in the ways of women.

It was the present situation which caused him to prowl a parlor in Quillack’s Hotel like a bear with an aching head, and not the thought of the Honorable Miss Merriman’s inevitable nuptials. For it was clear to him that his young nephew Robin was caught in the same sort of a trap that he had been in, but that the poor lad had been allowed to remain in it for too long. He blamed himself for that.

Nicholas Davent
r
y had returned from the fires of his disgrace tempered by strong feelings of responsibility and obligation to his family. Young Robin might be only his nephew, but he had always felt a bond of sympathy for the lad. Their circumstances were not too dissimilar. Robin had grown to adulthood in the close care of many women as well, for he had been a surprising late-life addition to his family and his two older brothers had been out of the house by the time he was out of his leading strings. Since his father was too old to be anything but bored by infants, and in any case was the sort of man who preferred the company of his older, more boisterous sons, Robin had returned his young uncle’s attention with a gratifying amount of hero worship.

During their school days, Robin’s upper-classman uncle was often pleased to confer honor upon him by returning his flattering adoration with flattering attention. And when his uncle was done with his famous adolescent misadventure, his nephew earned continuing favor by being sage enough or kind enough to never bring the matter up again.

But for all there was a link between “Old Nick” and “Robin Goodfellow,” as they continued to call each other into adulthood, Old Nick had been looking the other way when Robin flew off with his lover, and that his uncle could not forgive himself for. He had fired off a letter immediately after he had heard the news from his distraught aunt, swiftly disengaging himself from the affair he had been pursuing that had preoccupied him so disastrously. Worse yet, he had foolishly thought the matter was done when the chit left Robin in the lurch. He had believed that a tour of the Continent was just the thing to clear his nephew’s heart and head, and so encouraged it in yet another letter and then let the matter lie.

But Robin had been gone for three years and no letters, no messages, no wisdom anyone could put upon paper had changed his mind. His father could not rule him, as they had never been close and even when one son had succumbed to a fever and the other had fallen in the military, it was too late to pick up the threads of their relationship. His mama could only wail or nag at him. Only Old Nick could do some good, she insisted. What she left unsaid was the nagging fact that if Robin remained unwed, and then by some horrible chance came to his end while in that state of single blessedness, his uncle would be his heir. Heir to his fortune, and heir to his title.