The Abandoned Bride (11 page)

His aunt’s unspoken accusations did not move Nicholas and it was as well that she never uttered them. He might be a mere baron, but it was common knowledge that the Staffords never sought a title in their long history, not when, as it was commonly said, they had the blunt to buy a kingdom of their own if they wanted honors. But her spoken plaints had weight. For he did think he could influence his nephew. He had traveled to the Continent twice in fact, on various missions, and each time he had sought out Robin. And each time, he had been told, with a sad smile, “soon,” soon he would return, just so soon as he felt he could face England and all of its unhappy memories again.

He would have gotten over the whole foolish affair long since, Nicholas thought savagely, pausing in his pacing to thump his fist impotently upon a wall, if she had only let him alone. But no, he thought, she did not. First, she told Robin she had reconsidered, and when his hopes were high, she changed her mind again. She kept him on a long lead: one that lasted three years and stretched across the channel. In one letter to his uncle Robin would jubilantly state that Julia would be his within the year, and then another would arrive a few months later saying she had had second thoughts again and he must wait upon her reply. Then, even as his father’s condition worsened, Robin told his uncle he had received the devastating news that she had only been toying with him, for she was wed, and had been wed all the while.

The dark-haired gentleman looked down at his clenched fist and wondered again at the violence the wretched slut who called herself Miss Hastings caused him to feel. He could not understand her malice in the affair. If she had cast off Robin because he could not support her once his family had withdrawn their funds, why should she continue to torment him? It was to discover that that he had first set Bow Street upon her traces. When he found that it was another Miss Hastings, a Miss Harriet Hastings, that had been wed upon the sixteenth June, 1813, his fury had nearly overwhelmed him. When he was apprised of Miss Julia Hastings’ histo
r
y of employment, and realized that she was still on the catch for a wealthy mate, he decided to act.

She should have accepted his original offer, he thought, coming to rest at last upon the arm of the chair. But perhaps, he sighed, closing his eyes, she had her eye on a likely fool whom she thought might make an offer of marriage and did not wish to leave the count
r
y and ruin her chances. But there was no reason that he could fathom that would have made her continue to play at her game of innocence. Even Ivy had confessed all when she saw that the game was up. It was that air of outraged innocence, that aura of sweet blamelessness that set his teeth on edge and caused him to lose his temper and temperate thoughts.

No, it was not only that, he admitted. She was so beautiful, so cool and virginal with her demure dresses and her white spun-gold hair and clear light eyes and soft speech that at times she caused him to wonder if he were as mad as she had pretended she thought he was. He could understand why and how Robin had been so thoroughly gulled and how he could continue to be so totally grieved. For Nicholas had lied. Even knowing what she was, the thought of bedding her was irresistible.

But he would not even attempt her, Nicholas thought, opening his eyes to the advancing day and preparing to be done with his tumultuous, fruitless reasonings. Not only would it be a betrayal of Robin if he should lie with her, it would be a total loss of honor for himself. Nor would he ever strike her again. The sick and horrified feeling he had experienced when he realized what he had done, had caused him more pain than if he himself had been soundly beaten. And, he thought with grim amusement, so she
had
beaten him, the moment that he had touched her in anger. .

Nicholas Daventry straightened and marshaled his thoughts. He would never get anywhere, he realized, if he continued to think of her as just another female, as she wished him to. If he were to carry out this mission successfully, he would have to think of her dispassionately, as he would any masculine enemy, and plan accordingly.

She was dangerous, he thought, because she was never honest, perhaps never even with herself. She had power, because she had such uncanny ability to act that she made a man doubt his own reason. In fact, he wondered why she had not sought a career upon the stage. And she had the ability to incite a man’s desire. But he thought, pleased with how this new method of evaluating her cleared the matter, she clearly had weaknesses. In fact, on balance,
she was remarkably unsuccessful. All her past actions showed that she obviously did not angle for a wealthy man’s protection, but held out-instead for an advantageous marriage. There was wisdom in that, he conceded, but still she had never succeeded since she was yet poor and unattached.

Once he thought of her in much the manner of a general assessing an opposing force, his future course of action became clear.

He would counter the danger she presented by making this venture as short as possible, and by avoiding her company whenever he could. He would touch her neither in anger or desire. And he would save his own soul whenever he was tempted by her by remembering that the lowest draggleskirt he could buy at the waterfront of this city this night would have more morals than she possessed.

Now the baron straightened. A smile played about his lips, his brow was smooth, and his eyes shone with amusement. He was himself again. He took out his pocketwatch and was amazed at the hour. He had a great deal to do, he thought as
he strode to the door. He would hasten to take her to Robin. And then he would do all in his power to ensure that Robin fully understood the depth and scope of her vileness.

If he could not convince his gullible young nephew of her duplicity, the baron thought as he paused with his hand upon the door, he himself would pay any price, in coin or in kind, to see that the pair never wed. Nicholas Daventry did not make vows lightly, but now before he went out to see to arrangements for a trip to Paris, he gave his solemn oath to himself. He swore that Miss Julia Hastings would never be wife to his nephew. And if she tried, she would pay dearly.

Then, with the air of a man who has just accomplished a great deal, although he had only passed the morning in thought, he opened the door, bestowed a brilliant smile upon a passing maidservant and, squaring his shoulders with resolve, went out into the day.

Precisely at eight in the evening, Miss Hastings presented herself at the door to the private dining parlor. The baron rose to meet her and, acknowledging her punctuality, nodded to her as he showed her to her chair. Though he did not seem to examine her any more closely than he did the servant who brought them their repast, he took careful but oblique note of her appearance. It was both a little disappointing and a bit unnerving for him to discover that in her simple gray dress and beige shawl, she did not appear to be anything other than a very lovely, very sad young woman.

After all his morning’s reflections, he had almost expected her to arrive swathed in red silk and done up to the nines, like the heartless temptress he envisioned her to be. He might even have been pleased to see her unkempt and hysterical with outrage, as the consummate actress he believed her to be. But instead she sat quietly, wrapped in her omnipresent shawl, and said nothing and ate sparingly.

When desserts were brought and they were left alone, he began to detail the journey which was to begin in the morning. Only then did he look her full in the face and see that she had attempted to cover the bruise upon her cheek with rice powder.

A shrewd bargainer might have let it appear to accuse him in all its blatancy. Still, in its concealment, the blemish became even more vivid to him. He had to think a moment before he silently congratulated her on her artful and correct decision that her attempt to ignore the incident would cause him to feel far worse about it than shrill or sullen accusation might. But this reasoning was too convoluted for even its author to follow for longer than the time it took for him to sip his demitasse.

She listened closely as he detailed the coach trip they must take first to Doullens to clear up some personal matter he must attend to, and from thence to Paris itself. She remained mute during his explanations. To prod her from her unsettling silence, he ventured to offer her a slice of a gateau that he found excellent.

“No, thank you,” she said softly. “I find I have not much appetite.”

“Do you think,” he said smoothly, arching an eyebrow as he prepared for battle, “to make me feel guilty for your lack of appetite?”

“Oh no,” she replied swiftly. “It is only that I am not too hungry tonight.”

He sat and stared at her as she averted her eyes. He drummed his fingers upon the tabletop and then said so suddenly as to make her startle, “I am hardly a monster, you know. If you deal honestly with me, you will be honestly dealt with in return. This sulking pettishness does not endear you to me,
you know.”

“I don’t wish to endear myself to you,” she said, rising from her chair. “May I go to my room now?” Although this was said without a tremor in her voice, he could not help noticing the tears that had started in her eyes.

“Go then. Good night,” he said abruptly, and found himself rising for courtesy’s sake as she dropped her napkin upon the table and fled.

Nicholas Daventry remained at the table, scowling so fiercely that the servant who came to clear thought the elegant English gentleman must have possessed the nose of a Frenchman and detected the exact vintage that the hotel chose to serve those from across the channel. But the gentleman’s thoughts were far from a vinous nature. He was, instead, remembering the manner in which his absent guest had involuntarily cringed when he rose so suddenly to his feet, before she realized that he was only correctly taking note of her departure. He was remembering the sorrow omnipresent in her eyes, and the way she had sat with her shoulders slightly raised, as though in some manner she had gathered herself up against assault and had no other means of protection.

The servant did not have to call the manager to offer up apologies for the inferior wine, as he thought he had to from the thunderously black look upon the English gentleman’s face. The gentleman was only furious with himself. It was no one event of the evening that distressed him. It was the inescapable realization he had just come to this evening, that he had only wasted a great deal of his time and effort during the day. For not one of his fine resolves
born
of the morning had been able to survive its first night.

₇

Julia woke to a new day with a new face staring down at her. She immediately scrambled to an upright position, caught the coverlets up to her chin, and asked in a voice squeaky with fright and early morning disuse, “Who are you?”

She had been roused from a dream of home and it had been so vivid that now in the moment of awakening she was not sure of where she was. A slight noise had blurred her dream and her eyes had opened to register the incredible fact that a being they had never gazed upon before was gazing back at them. It wasn’t a very frightening face; in fact, Julia’s sudden movement and apparent terror seemed to alarm it equally as much as she had been affrighted. Upon more careful reflection, Julia could see that it was a gentle feminine visage that regarded her. The woman appeared to be of middle age, and was small, with a compact form. She had a plain but intelligent face and chestnut hair with strands of gray interwoven in its neat braids.

“But I have only come to awaken you, mademoiselle,” the woman said as she backed away.

Julia found herself vaguely remembering her circumstances, but when the woman added, “M’sieur le Baron, he told me that
you must be woken, and dressed and ready to travel within the hour
...”
everything came back to her, and she sank back upon the pillows, her look of distress completely gone, being replaced immediately by an expression of sorrow.

“Ah yes,” Julia sighed, as she ran a hand through her long and tousled hair, “then thank you.”

Julia threw back the covers and was about to walk to the dressing table when the woman approached her bearing a laden silver tray.

“Please to rest yourself, mademoiselle,” she said anxiously, “for I have taken the liberty to bring you some coffee and some fresh croissants, do you see, and some chocolate, too, if you like. If you wish to make use of the convenience, then I shall wait, but if not, I should be pleased to pour for you now.”

There was such exaggerated concern in the woman’s voice that Julia sat back promptly and said that she would be pleased to have some chocolate, thank you very much. For though she ve
r
y much wished to visit the small adjoining chamber upon her awakening, the consternation upon the older woman’s countenance was so acute that she felt it would have been cruel to deny her the immediate opportunity to pour the chocolate, arrange the napery, and smooth the coverlets, as she promptly commenced to do.

Julia thought that as soon as she had begun her breakfast, the older woman would have gone on her way, as it was a busy hotel and there must have been some other ladies awakening to find themselves in need of sustenance. But the woman only stood at a respectful distance and watched with deep concentration as Julia sipped at her chocolate. She was being observed so narrowly that Julia had the mad momenta
r
y thought that perhaps the baron had in some wise arranged to alter the innocuous beverage in some fashion to ensure her docility. It was excellent chocolate, and it was a bizarre fancy that undoubtedly had little basis in truth, yet, Julia decided as she regretfully put down her cup, she was not really very hungry. But it was becoming apparent that the nervous maidservant would not be gone until the breakfast was finished. Perhaps she had to make sure that none of the cutlery was stolen, Julia thought as she patted her lips with the napkin to signify that she was done.

But when she returned from the antechamber with her essential morning’s ablutions done, the woman was still standing in the center of the room as though she had been awaiting Julia’s return. Julia was unaccustomed to hotels, and unfamiliar with the ways of the Quality that normally patronized them. For all she knew, she thought uncomfortably as she sat at the dressing table and picked up her hair brush, it was she herself who was acting in a strange fashion, and not the maidservant. Then all at once it came to her that perhaps the poor woman was unable to leave until she was actually dismissed.

She searched for the right words as the maidservant’s anxious eyes searched her face. “That is all,” she said in a stilted fashion. “Thank you, but you may go now.”

“But your hair!” the maidservant protested as she came forward and took the brush from Julia’s fingers. “Please allow me!” she cried as she began to brush out the pale and tangled mass of it.

Her touch was gentle and beneath her fingers, Julia’s hair began to resemble a glowing, gliding river of sunlight. As the determined maidservant drew up the golden tresses to arrange them, the recipient of her attentions hardly noticed that a fashion was being created for her that was far lovelier than any she herself had ever either envisioned or attempted. For Julia was not feeling so much privileged as beleaguered.

So when the maidservant had done, and stood back proudly so that Julia could see how cleverly her golden hair had been done
a la Princesse,
the nod and sigh of relief that the young woman offered was not in response to the artistry of her hairdressing, but rather to the fact that an idea had occurred to her. A pourboire, of course, Julia thought, smiling so broadly with relief that the maidservant smiled back at her. The poor woman expected some gratuity and had stayed on and would stay on performing all sorts of chores, until she received one. And she, like the untutored simpleton she was, had not realized it.