The Abandoned Bride (18 page)

Then, because she had wasted so much time looking for the right dress, and dithering over whether it was close enough to the elusive petal color he had specified, she realized that it had grown late. The wind was howling outside, the fire in the bedroom’s grate had died down, and even the water in the washbasin that the maid had brought when she had lit the fire had grown from steaming hot to only tepid. But Julia was a good, cleanly girl, so she stripped to her waist and washed herself thoroughly before she put on the frock that was to be her wedding dress. She even had a vial of lavend
e
r water and she thought she would dab some behind her ears or perhaps, daringly, between her breasts, so that she would be scented as well as washed for her wedding.

As she toweled herself dry, she thought that it might have been nice to have had her mother or a sister there to see to her and to wish her well, but Robin had explained that it was not possible to have them present without involving them in possible blame from his family. She shuddered a bit when she thought of his family, but then remembering that Robin had said that all would be well when they were wed, she sighed, and thinking of him, she was so occupied that she did not hear him when he tapped at the door. And the force of the wind outside prevented her from hearing him when he opened the door and asked her leave to come into the room again.

She only became aware of him when he caught her around the waist from behind and hugged her to himself. Her start of alarm subsided to a contented sigh as she felt the long clean length of him against her back, and she heard his voice from right beneath her left ear as he dropped his mouth to the entrance of her ear to whisper,
“
Dreaming? But it isn’t even night yet, little one. I’m keeping you up far past your bedtime, am I not, child? But the storm is fierce and the roads are bad because of it. So the vicar is late, and dear, adorable Edwin is tardy as well.”

He had been drinking something potent, she could scent it on his breath along with the sharp strong scent of cinnamon and clove. But it was a comfortable scent, like that of baking day at home, so she only stretched herself in a happy sigh against him and she felt his arms tighten about her waist.

“Let’s have a look at you, child,” he whispered on a husky laugh, and he spun her around to face him, even as she remembered that she was not yet completely dressed. She had been holding a towel in front of herself when he had come in, for she had stripped to her waist and her rose dress still lay upon the bed in readiness for her. But when he turned her around, in that one instant, in that one moment of decision that she was to relive a hundred times for every heartbeat of it, she dropped the towel thinking, “Why not? He is to be my husband.”

Or was it pride in her young body, she was later to often wonder? Or was it an unknowing act of lust? Had it been only a prelude to a jest? Or was it only the action of a very young girl, very much in what she thought was love with her future husband? She herself would never precisely recall her own reasons, and had things transpired differently she might never have had to try to fathom them at all. But as she spun around to face him, she dropped the towel and dropped her gaze to the ground as she did so. So she could not read his face when he saw her. That was to bother her very much a thousand times later. It was to plague her like an itch along the inside of a bone, where one could never reach it. For she had no idea of what his first reaction had been. The first moment she had any idea something was amiss was when she heard his voice, low and somewhat shaken, saying, “Ah, then. Then you are really not so much the child after all, are you, Julia?”

She had looked down at herself. Fool! her later self was to cry, so many times later, reviewing the scene, why did you not look up into his face instead? You would have time enough to spare to gaze at yourself in the years to come. But as it was, she had glanced downward and all she had seen was her own two rose-tipped breasts, clear in the light of the room. Then she had looked to him, to see him staring at her breasts as well, with a look of
...
what, she was never to ascertain. For she only saw that look upon his face for a fleeting moment and it was neither lust, nor shock, nor revulsion, nor desire, but all those things and something else as well.

Then he had pulled her close and kissed her very savagely and frightened her very badly. Because that kiss was not her gentle Robin, and that rough embrace was never his, and neither was his face familiar in the moment after he was done with the kiss and had thrust her away. But when she had caught up the towel again, and held it to cover herself and taken in a deep breath and dared to stare at him at last, then it was Robin’s gentle face that she saw again. But his words could not have been his.

For that was when he told her of the other
that he loved, and of how it would never be fair to wed her when he really loved another. And she had never believed him, and still did not.

So nothing happened that night between us, my lord baron, she whispered to herself there in the dark, I told you nothing but the truth. I merely omitted a few details. But as they made no sense, if makes no matter.

Since she had begun it, Julia knew she must end it or never find sleep this night. So she passed the next few hours as she always did when that scene came back to her with that much clarity. She wondered again if it was something about her body which had revulsed him, perhaps it had been her breasts—their form, or shape, or size. Then she wondered if it had been something more intangible, sufficiently repellent but so discreet that she could never discover it for herself; a thing she lacked the courage to ever ask another being about: such as a scent, an odor, or a miasma that clung to her. Or perhaps it had been her wanton action or her kiss that had tipped the scales. Perhaps it had made him think she was loose and unprincipled, well used to doing such wild and abandoned things. Or perhaps it had been something he found disgusting in her very kiss itself.

And so Julia whiled away the small hours of the night as she so often did, wondering at what it was in herself that was so repugnant, or what it had been in her actions that had been so intolerable. She never doubted that she was at fault in some manner for what had happened. For she had never been, for all her youth, a fool. And she knew that Robin, ah Robin, he had loved her well—until that moment. That one decisive moment when something in herself, or of herself, had banished him forever.

11

The frail elderly
gentleman
selected his breakfast with great care from the array of shining chafing dishes left out upon the long buffet table in the dining room. It was a pleasant morning, the early summer sunlight shone in through the long glass windows to illuminate the room, and there seemed to be little reason for the gentleman’s rather pained expression as he paused over the broiled mushrooms, kidneys, and eggs. But then, with an exhalation that was only the merest suggestion of a sigh, he walked past the chafing dish, and with finicky precision, took instead a simple golden roll and laid it alongside the plain dish of porridge and solitary brown egg mounted upon a silver cup that he had already chosen for his breakfast.

A footman bore his choice of breakfast to the long damasked table. There, in solitary state, although the table clearly had room and to spare for a dozen other diners and their companions as well beside him, the gentleman sat down in silence to his light breakfast. He had consumed his gruel with placid disinterest and had begun tapping upon his egg in rather aimless fashion, as though he had little interest in actually decapitating
it, when the door to the room swung open suddenly to admit his host, come in to breakfast with him.

“Vicar!” cried Sir Sidney to the older gentleman as though he had not seen him in a year, when in fact, they had parted company not eight hours before. “My dear fellow, how glad I am that you’re a
n
early riser too. I hate to breakfast alone. But I see you’ve hardly anything left upon your plate. Come, come, have a bit more to sustain you for the day. Try the kippers, they’re excellent, I have ’em brought in ’cross the channel fresh every day, you know, since so many of our guests are homesick for ’em. But you’re a worldly fellow, have a bite of these cutlets, the cream sauce is superb, the Frenchies are a wonder with sauces, you know. Or these kidneys, marvelous, I swear it. At the very least, dear friend,” Sir Sidney said heartily, as he piled his own plate higher with each of the treats as he enumerated them, and noticed his guest’s delicately bilious expression as the plate became more laden, “join me in another pot of tea. That is, if there’s room enough for us both in there,
”
he concluded, laughing as though he had capped his sentence with a play on words that was both new and original.

Sir Sidney bore his own plate to the table, shooing away the attentive footman by telling him both loudly and abruptly to clear out as his services weren’t required and that he’d call for him when he was done with his meal.

“Fellow’s been working for me for years, I dare say,” he grumbled to his guest as he settled down in a chair opposite to him, “but he still don’t understand a word I say unless I shout at him. Damned foreigner
s
expect you to learn their bloody language instead of the other way around. Or at least,” he said darkly, pointing an egg-bearing fork at the vicar, “so they’d have you believe, but I never knew a servant didn’t lea
rn
his master’s language in a trice, so’s he could lea
rn
what was going forth about him. Take this lot of Frenchies, they might know what you were talking about chapter and verse, but just try to get ’em to admit to it.”

The other gentleman did not reply immediately, but waited instead until the footman had actually left the room and closed the door carefully behind him. Then all he did was smile politely and resume his attack upon his egg, as he murmured “Doubtless,” to his host.

“You’re not eating enough to keep a flea alive,” Sir Sidney protested, with his mouth so full that his cheeks bulged and his words were muffled. “Have more, Vicar, there’s plenty enough to go around.”

“It’s not the amplitude that concerns me, it is my own fortitude. That is to say, it’s my digestion, not my discretion, that’s at fault, my dear,” the vicar explained. “I’m sure that there’s enough,” he went on, setting down his spoon after only a mouthful of egg, and dabbing at his pale and thin lips with a spotless napkin, “for I think that I may be the only houseguest left here with you, Ollie.”

“No, you’re out there,” his host answered more clearly, having swallowed most of his food and washed it down with a gulp of steaming tea, “because old Duchess FitzAllen and her young cicisbeo are still here, as are Kirkland and Dabney and their opera dancers, and the two Charter brothers, and oh yes, Lord Lambert and Count Voronov as well.”

“They left at first light, Ollie,” the vicar said quietly.

“Rats leaving a sinking ship,” Sir Sidney said savagely, putting down his cutlery suddenly and leaving off the affect of hearty, jolly host just as abruptly. His heavily jowled face grew a sneer to replace his habitual smile as he went on to say angrily, “Well, they’re the sort that sails only with a fair current, but they’ve ruined it for themselves in future, for they’ll not be welcome back here when the tide turns again.”

“I had understood,” said the vicar softly, giving his plate an imperceptible push away from himself even as he gave his chair a slight nudge away from the table, “that it was more in the nature of a tidal wave than a tide actually, Ollie dear.”

“Well, you understood wrongly,” Sir Sidney replied quickly, “for it’s only
a tempora
r
y misunderstanding that I’ll soon set to rights. It’s all grist for the rumor mill and nothing more. After all, Vicar,” he said ingratiatingly, with a shadow of his former smile, “you have known me forever, you’ve stayed on here with me as my guest for time out of mind, can you actually see me as a traitor?”

“Actually,” the vicar said in his usual whispery voice, “yes, Ollie dear. But don’t feel you must make explanation to me,” he said quickly, raising one thin, veined hand to silence his host’s next expected words, “for it’s quite unnecessary, I assure you. I’m the paltriest of fellows, as you well know. My only value in life now lies in the fact that I am an entertaining guest. There’s no need for you to make apology or, indeed, to even take note of such a fribble as myself. You’ve had me on here as guest, time out of mind, it’s true, old dear. But I don’t feel too guilty about it, for after all, I did earn my way. Why, I entertained your guests royally, Ollie, you can’t deny that. I always knew the latest gossip and passed it along without stint. And when I heard, by the by, in the course of discovering the latest on-dit, what was being said of my own host, I never batted an eyelash, for it isn’t fit for me to judge you, Ollie. But I was awaiting you this morning, my dear. For I’m sorry to inform you that I am one of those rodents too—I’m leaving today as well. Well, after all,” he said with a thin smile, “there’s scarcely a need for a jester is there, when the court is no longer in session.”

Sir Sidney stayed very still, and then he began to laugh. He laughed long and loudly and then, noting that his napkin was both egg-and sauce-covered, he wiped his eyes upon the back of his sleeve and let out one last and gusty chuckle. Then he said without a trace of humor remaining in his voice, “Always admired your crust, Vicar. You could murder a man, step over him, and hand the dripping dagger to someone and ask for new cutlery since your own knife was dirtied. I liked that about you, Vicar, I did indeed. Even the way you adopted that name, ‘Vicar,’ when you grew old, when everyone knew that the Baron Watchtower had always been an absolute rakeshame who could only qualify as a clergyman to the devil himself.”

The thin, ascetic gentleman bowed his head graciously, with a gentle smile, as though he was receiving a great compliment, as his host went on with a sort of grim, relentless delight in his voice now, “The tales of your youthful adventures are legend, Vicar. They say that you bedded everything that walked the earth, just for the novelty of it, in your day. And that the further jest was that you did so for love or for money, for lust or for a lark, with the highborn and the low, from whatever class, situation, gender, or even species, I don’t doubt, that you happened to fancy at the moment, or so I heard. I even heard that you only live here upon the Continent because your name’s so ripe that your family wants no part of you at home at all.”

“Now gossip is not your
métier
, Ollie, you really ought to leave it to us professionals,” the vicar chided in the dry accents of an aged headmaster. Then he added conversationally, “All the rest is true, but you have that last the wrong way around, for I choose to stay abroad myself. After all, what have I in common with the usual run of English nobility of my own age? Can you just see me, Ollie my dear, in some gentleman’s club on St. James Street, with all the other old fellows boring on about their army experiences or adventures in Society as they sip their cordials and comment on the news nostalgically, while I think back on my adventures in a thousand bedchambers as I eye the footmen reminiscently? No, it would never do, would it? Not while I have an excellent nephew to whom I can leave the twin chores of breeding and burnishing up the family name. No Ollie, my exile here is entirely my own choice. I am a professional guest by personal inclination as well. I know that it comes as a surprise, but as it happens, I’ve a great deal of blunt. It’s only the fact that I choose to leave it all to my charming nephew that makes me such a sponge who lives upon the good graces of hosts such as yourself. It appears,” he said with an expression of bemuse
d
wonder, “that I possess a conscience after all, for I find that I wish to leave my tediously conventional young relative a great deal more than merely the title itself.”

“Then if I’m still willing to foot the bill for your services, why are you leaving?” Sir Sidney said abruptly.

Something flickered for an instant in the older man’s gentle countenance, but then was gone, leaving the aged face as grave and calm as it was before his host had spoken.

“Ah well, Ollie,” the vicar said regretfully, “it is a paradox, you see. Precisely because I have to be universally-pleasing and acceptable everywhere, I must take care where I am accepted.”

“Meaning,” his host said in an ugly, threatening voice, “that I am no longer acceptable?”

The vicar made no reply, but with an ironic smile, only spread his two thin hands out to either side of his body in a gesture of total helplessness.

“Damn it, it’s all lies!” Sir Sidney shouted, banging his hand down upon the heavy wooden tabletop so hard that the plates and teacups danced.

“
As you say,” the vicar replied imperturbably.

“Vicar,” Sir Sidney said suddenly, “you can do me a service before you leave.”

As his guest looked up warily from the spreading stain of tea upon the tablecloth that he had been observing, Sir Sidney heaved a bitter chuckle before he went on to say, “Aye, you’ve convinced me farther protests of innocence will be disregarded. But as a man of the world, you know as well as I do that if I manage to retrieve my good name, all will be forgiven, so I hardly need to blather on about it now, before I’ve got the facts in hand. But there’s a thing you can do for me to achieve those ends, for all our old time’s sake.”

The vicar regarded his host with a stilled and watchful expression as Sir Sidney said harshly, “You needn’t look at me like that, vicar, I’m not about to ask you to commit murder. It’s only gossip I’m after. It’s a little thing that I’ve had to make big because of your own decision to leave. It’s the sort of thing I’d have asked you over a hand of cards, by the way, if I had my choice.”

“Ah well, then,” the vicar asked in his usual amused accents, “then out with it, Ollie, if it’s who’s been sleeping in my bed, I’m sure to know.”

“Not precisely,
”
Sir Sidney said, leaning in closer to his guest. “His bedtime habits don’t interest me much, unless they’re spectacular. I’d like to know what you know of Lord Nicholas Davent
r
y, Baron Stafford.”

“Ah,” said the vicar.

She looked uncommonly well in her new frock, Nicholas thought. And so he told her, before she left to go on another shopping expedition that he had ordered, or, he thought ruefully, on another sightseeing expedition as she preferred. For though she had colored up nicely at his compliment, and seemed to be all acquiescence as he told her to go ahead and purchase some more finery for herself, even as he did so he had the distinct notion that she had passed some sort of unspoken orders to her maidservant. She might yet, he thought with real amusement, dash into some shop and hurriedly buy a pair of gloves so as to comply with the letter of his command, and then pass the remainder of the day goggling at works of art in some museum to comply with the spirit of her own desires.

He smiled to himself at the thought of her possible furtive activity. Then realizing that he often smiled when he thought of her, he frowned. For she was a beauty, and a fellow ought to be moved to more explicable passions when he refined upon such a magnificent female face and form. Yet though there was no doubt that she could spur the expected emotions when he encountered her, it was not unusual to find that it was laughter which she provoked in him as often as it was lust. And laughter was a powerful aphrodisiac. At least, he discovered much to his own discomfort that it was apparently so in his own case.

He ought, at the very least, to mistrust her. At the very most, with Robin’s damning letters as his guide, he should detest her. But he had spent much time in her company during their journey to Paris and had dined with her each evening since. And as time went on, he found to his dismay that he enjoyed her company enormously. He appreciated her looks and enjoyed her conversation. But he discovered himself pondering too often about the question of her innocence, and musing far too long on the eventual outcome to their journeying.