The Abandoned Bride (26 page)

“For someone brought a friend to one of our revels. And though he looked deceptively mature, the lad turned out to be shockingly young. What he did at our soiree preyed upon his mind and so he confessed all to his father. Who, as it happened, turned out to be no less than an honored duke, and who had, to our misfortune, the ear of the Prince. We had to fly, of course.
But I did not want to, you see.” Robin sighed, shaking his tousled head.

“So I came to Surrey,” he said with artificial brightness, “to rusticate and escape the scandal. Then I hit upon a capital scheme for concealing my preferential way of life. I chose the youngest, prettiest, sweetest, most
naïve
child that I could to take to wife. One lovely enough for my Uncle Nick to admire, for it was upon his expert taste that I based my criteria,” he said with a brilliant sidewise smile, before he went on to add, “and one with no connections. Oh sorry, Julia, I meant to say no social connections. So that even if she eventually discovered me, she could do nothing about it.

“But I was not a monster, Julia,” Robin said quickly, “for after all, if I had been discreet, you might never have known. And there was a great deal that I could give you: a kind of love, a great deal of gold, and a title. And even, I thought, with luck and enough
time,
an heir.”

Robin’s embarrassed laugh dwindled into silence. Julia sat with her head bowed, and Nicholas stood quietly at her side. Neither man spoke, they knew it was Julia’s moment alone.

“Robin,” she finally whispered, her eyes large and
v
ery frightened at what she must now ask, “what changed your mind, then?”

“That towel, l
o
ve,” Robin sighed with a twisted smile, “or rather, the lack of it. For want of a nail the horse was lost
...
”
he recited, before his smile faded and he went on. “For want of a towel a wife was lost. Because you see, child, in that moment I realized that you weren’t a child but a warm and loving and dismayingly complete woman. I knew then that to be able to return your kiss in a way I ought to have quite naturally done, I would have had to go back down to the
taproom for quite a few more hours. I knew that it was never fair to you, or to me. You were simply too young and too sweet to do that to, Julia. I liked you very well, so I left you. I honestly thought you’d soon forget me and marry some local fellow before the year closed out.

“Then I left for the Continent with my good friend Sir Edwin Chester, who is an older, wiser, worthy gentleman whatever his unfortunate tastes, even you cannot say nay to that, Nicholas. He brought Julia home swiftly and safely when my heart and head failed me that night. Then we came here. And here I shall stay,” he declared with challenge in his tone, “for here I am myself, and I am, according to my own lights, happy.”

Julia shook her head in disbelief, perversely seeking a hole in the fabric of his story. It was a strange narrative, but there was no part of it which gave her so much difficulty as that, which freed her of all fault for that night. It was as though she had grown so accustomed to believing in the invisible flaw within herself that she refused to accept the daring notion of her blamelessness.

“But Robin,” she persisted, “if it were only that, then why didn’t you tell me?”

There was a profound silence after she spoke, and though she awaited his reply, Robin only looked at her oddly. But then, unexpectedly, Nicholas bent close to her and spoke gently, “He did not dare, I imagine. Even though he thought highly of you, he didn’t dare put his life in your hands. You see, Robin’s way of life can be a way of death in our country. It is a capital offense, Julia, punishable by hanging.”

“Oh, I doubt they’d actually stretch my neck, Nick.” Robin laughed bitterly. “Noblesse oblige and all that, you know. My title would buy me exile rather than the topping cheat. But unless I passed my life in a tissue of lies that would make this situation appear to be only a matter of a few fibs, I would be told, man to gentleman, to leave my country forever. It does not take much, you know. Just before I left home, you’ll recall, there was the celebrated case of that waiter accused by his busboy. Only accused, mind you, but nonetheless it only took five minutes for a jury of his peers to vote him out of this life.

“There are ways around it,” Robin said knowingly. “Oh yes, there are. I could be like Sir Bailey up in Yorkshire, who spends his life as a recluse, never passing through the very gates of his estates lest he succumb to temptation again and ruin his name. Or even better, like Lord Crowell, who parades his wife in the highest reaches of the ton. But she is a trull
who holds his title dearer than her honor and presents him with bastard babes every year to carry that prized title onward. I would not do that, Nick,” Robin said fervently. “It would be far better that one of your blood take my name after I am gone, than one from a nameless litter spawned by some opportunist...” He paused, collected himself, and then said soberly, “The
vicar is no fool, you know. I could do worse than to follow his lead.”

They stayed in silence, then, the two gentlemen and the lady, in the opulent rented bedroom. Each was immersed in his own thoughts to the point that no one of them noted the quiet grown profound enough to make the mantel clock’s tiny, tinny chime resound like that of Bow Bells in the hushed room. But when Julia looked up and out into the world again at that intrusion, she found that Nicholas was watching her closely.

“Do you understand now?” he asked simply, placing his hand upon her shoulder.

“Yes,” she said, facing hint squarely and answering as honestly as she was able. “As much, that is to say, as I can, I think.”

“And do you forgive me, child?” Robin asked with concern.

The warm weight of the baron’s hand upon her shoulder seemed to give Julia’s body warmth, and she drew confidence from the way he continued to stand at her side. The two men who had shaped her life so strangely in the past few years waited for her reply, and even as she drew in her breath to answer she knew that for all of them far more than the next few years was dependent upon what she next said.

“I am not a child, Robin,” she replied thoughtfully, “but I was one when you knew me, and yes, it would have been disastrous had we wed then. So, instead of blaming you, I suppose I must thank you. No, Nicholas, don’t look at me that way,” she protested with a little laugh as she read his face, “I am no saint, and although I am relieved beyond words to know that I’m not a freakish thing, in any wise either, I’m human enough to wish Robin at Jericho for these years of doubt I suffered. ”

She shook her head in a sorrowful negative and added, “I can’t undo the past so it’s useless to say what might have been had you not come into my life, Robin.” And then, with a small, sweet smile she added, “But I can’t forgive you either.” Robin hesitated, and then, smiling sweetly himself, merely shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness, and Julia could feel Nicholas’s hand grow heavy upon her even as she went on to say in the same thoughtful tones, “For there is nothing for me to forgive, you see. Nothing. Yes, you ought not to have offered for me, knowing what you did, and you ought not,
I suppose, to be what you are. But then, none of us have been precisely what we should have been, have we? I ought not to have been such a ninny as to agree to marry you without knowing you, and Papa ought not to have given his consent so quickly, for I would not have made a move without it. And Nicholas should never have believed the worst of me without proof, or forced me to leave England to come to the last place on earth that I wished to be. So if you come right down to it,” she said reasonably, “I ought not to be here right now.” Nicholas removed his hand from her shoulder as she shook out her skirts and rose from the chair so that she might cease to look up at both men and face Robin directly.

“But I am here, so let’s make an end to it now. I would wish that it all had happened to some other person. But at least it’s over. Or, at least for
me it is. And for whatever it’s worth,” she smiled as she put out her hand, “I wish you well in future, Robin, I truly do.”

Robin took her hand, but even as he had it in his clasp, he turned a bright look toward his uncle.

“And you, Nick?” he asked quickly. “Do you? Ah, might as well ask for the moon, I suppose. Julia forgives that which she cannot fully comprehend. She’s not a gentleman and hasn’t been to the best schools and clubs, thank God. Still, if I cannot condone it fully myself, why then, how can I expect it of you?
C’est la vie.
Only don’t despise me too much if you can help it, and keep it between us, if you will. I should rather Mama believed no girl good enough for me than the reverse. I don’t mind being the family skeleton, but pray don’t rattle my bones too much.”

He bowed to Julia, and then straightened his shoulders. “Well,” he breathed with an air of great decision, “I believe I’ll be going along now. Don’t fret about Ollie, Uncle, for I’ll have a word with him myself. I’ll simply tell him that he’s too late, you’ve discovered all and are in such a rage that you’ve already vowed to spill it to the family. He can’t sell secrecy he don’t possess, so if he broaches the subject to you, just agree to the tale. I don’t think,” he added, giving his motionless, grave-visaged uncle a measuring look, “that you’ll have to simulate too much rage, at that.”

“No,” his uncle agreed grimly.

Then as Robin grew white about the mouth and turned
blindly to the door, Nicholas cleared his throat and added in a clearer voice, “No, it’s an unworkable scheme, dear boy. If he’d believe me to be so enraged, why then he’d believe me willing to pay anything for his silence before the world. Now wouldn’t it be far better if we both faced him? Say, as two gentlemen who might choose to live extremely different lives, but who have a fondness for each other through memory as well as blood that transcends present circumstances. Such gentlemen can have no secrets from each other, and never would, for they would know that their friendship could withstand anything but deceit. He can’t sell a secret that doesn’t exist. I don’t know about you, Robin, but certainly I think I would not have to simulate enthusiasm for your company. And if he asks you, I hope you would agree with me.”

Robin stopped in his tracks, and then, smiling as tremulously and as suspiciously broadly as his uncle, advanced upon the baron. The two men positively slapped their hands together before they gripped them hard and grinned at each other
.
And Julia, seeing it all through a sudden blurry mist, made a liar of herself. For as she stood and watched them repeatedly and wordlessly shaking hands, she was supremely happy to be there at that moment. And she would not have been anywhere else in the world, for the world, even though she was undeniably there against her will, on her own, and ve
r
y far from home.

The afternoon late summer sun shone down broadly upon the diners at the outdoor cafe near the banks of the Seine. It was such a bright day that many of the gentry taking refreshment there had to squint their eyes to see their dishes of ice properly, although their ladies were more fortunate, having their parasols to shield them from the full glare.

So it was that one gentleman had his eyes screwed up tightly as he attempted to watch a playful quartet of persons at another table. It was hard to ascertain whether he was affected by the glare or brought to the brink of either laughter or tears by their apparent outsized merriment. For he soon had to bring his handkerchief into use, if only to clear his eyes so that he might better see the gentleman who joined him at his table.

“Oh, hello there, Ollie, my friend,” the vicar said pleasantly as he pulled out a spindly chair, dusted it with his own
handkerchief, and then dropped gracefully
i
nto place, even
though he had not been invited to do so. “How good to find you here in the city of light. Now who was it told me
you were in Amsterdam?” he mused. “No matter, for clearly, you’re here now. How goes it with you, then?” the older gentleman asked, all solicitude, as though he were speaking to a man in his sick bed rather than in a fashionable cafe in the heart of Paris.

“Is there anything you don’t know, blast you?” the heavy-set gent
l
eman answered angrily, although he never took his eyes off the other table.

“I sincerely hope not!” the thin old gentleman replied with a great show of horror. He smiled, and although he did no more than signal to the waiter and order up a cup of tea, he seemed to be enjoying himself hugely. “A charming sight, is it not?” he sighed at length when his companion did not speak. He gestured toward the four persons at the table at the far end of the cafe, the four who were laughing and talking together, the four that his host could not tear his gaze from.

“And such a singularly unusual circumstance,” he said confidentially, dropping his voice, “for there sits Lord Nicholas Daventry,. Baron Stafford—why he’s the same chap you were asking me about, Ollie, when last I saw you! Well, here’s a bit of gossip for you then, for there he sits with his young nephew, Robin Marlowe, Earl of Shepton, and Lady Mary Preston and some young filly she’s looking after. But the singular thing, Ollie,” the vicar whispered although still grinning terribly, looking rather like an ancient turtle in his glee, “is that it’s rumored that young Robin has a rather queer kick in his gait, and yet his family don’t give a rap, so long as he’s discreet enough about it to stay on the Continent. Now I don’t know what this
modern
world is coming to, Ollie, I vow I do not.”

But at that, his companion slammed his fist upon the table and rose. He gave the other table one last fulminating look and then turned to the older gentleman, who was gazing at him blandly.

“Damn you, Vicar,” Sir Sidney shouted wrathfully, and then, shoulders slumping, he slouched out into the street and disappeared into the afternoon crowds.

“Oh dear,” the vicar chuckled to himself, “and he’s left me with the bill to settle, of course. But it was worth the price,” he whispered to himself as he fished for a coin from his vest pocket, “for value received.”

Then the old gentleman made his way to the table his erstwhile host had been observing. He made a courtly bow which brought a smile of gratification from Lady Preston, and then he declined the baron’s offer that he join them.

“I only came, dear friends,” he said, standing by their table so wreathed in smiles as to be a bit frightening, like a dessicated Father Christmas, “to tell you of the departure of another acquaintance. Sir Oliver Sidney, it appears, has no further business here, and I imagine, we’ll see no more of him. Pity, that,” he remarked in a singularly unsorrowful fashion. “But the pity is,” he said with some real emotion and a more wistful smile, “that I imagine that means you will soon be gone from here as well, my dears.”

Lady Preston nodded in affirmation, and the young earl grew a wistful expression as he acknowledged the truth of the statement. But at those innocuous words, the vicar noticed, Miss Hastings’ lovely face immediately went the color of the damask tablecloth, and she bit her lip and dropped her gaze to her lap. And the Baron Stafford, who had carried state secrets through a roomful of assassins without so much as batting his long eyelashes, grew suddenly so still he seemed to be carved from alabaster.