The Proper Wife
Автор
Julia Justiss
Прочтений
15,5K
Глав
20
Chapter One
Gloved hands gripping the windward rail, Colonel Lord St. John Sandiford braced himself against a gust that threatened to rip the shako from his head, and gazed into the gray curtain of wind-whipped fog. Through a momentary cleft in the drizzle, he spotted the faint outline of the approaching shore. England. The conquering hero, home from the wars at last.
As his lips twisted at the bitter irony, a loud “halloo” redirected his attention. He turned to see Lieutenant Alexander Standish approaching, his awkward limp worsened by the rise and fall of the pitching deck. When their ship slammed into a cresting breaker with a hull-shuddering crash that seemed to threaten the soldier’s precarious balance, Sinjin leapt toward him, hand extended.
“Grab on, Alex,” he shouted against the wind. To his relief, the lieutenant didn’t hesitate, but took the help offered. Together they stumbled back to the firmer support of the rail.
“Thank you, Colonel,” the young man gasped, still panting from his exertions. Sinjin inspected him closely, relieved to see the glow in the lieutenant’s eyes apparently derived this time from excitement rather than fever. “Guess I’m still none too steady on my pins.”
“Shouldn’t have ventured on deck in this blow.” Sinjin delivered the mild reproof with a smile. “Fine thing for me to nursemaid you through a battlefield and months of hospital, only to have you wash overboard within a mile of landfall.”
The lieutenant smiled back. “I expect it wasn’t prudent, but…but I couldn’t wait any longer for a glimpse of home! I admit I was surprised to see you up here. Should have thought you’d had experience enough on the Peninsula being soaked through and frozen. You must be as anxious as I.”
Reticence honed in the months spent with the Duke of Wellington’s diplomatic train curbed his replying it was precisely to escape the eager talk below decks that he’d ventured topside. Turning the question, he said, “If you’re anxious enough to risk becoming fish-bait, Lady Barbara herself must be awaiting you on the pier.”
A blush stained the soldier’s thin cheeks. “Certainly not, though that would be the most gloriously welcoming sight I could imagine. I…I can only hope she’s still waiting in London. Nothing formal was announced before I joined the Regiment, you know, and now…” He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Her parents may want someone better for her, someone who’s still—whole.”
How often things change whilst soldiers are off fighting and dying. That thought stirred the embers of a rage three years hadn’t managed to extinguish, and once again Sinjin had to bite back his first reply. “Nonsense,” he said instead, giving the lieutenant’s shoulder a bracing slap. “What better man could her family wish for her than one of the peerless heroes who vanquished the tyrant Napoleon for good and all? A rich hero at that, if the gossip of your father’s wealth is accurate. Besides, you can always tell them how much worse off it was with the horse. Him, we had to shoot.”
As he had hoped, the young man laughed. “Despite the leg, holding rein with my good hand, I can still ride, thank God. Regardless of what Lady Barbara’s father decides, I’m much more fortunate than many.”
For a moment both were silent, thinking of how few, how precious few of their comrades had ridden away from the killing ground of Waterloo.
“What of you, Colonel? After a long year abroad, surely some lady impatiently awaits your return?”
A visage flashed into mind before, with a grimace, he could banish it. “I’ve been gone a deal longer than that,” he evaded once more.
“You came to Brussels before the rest of the Army, then?”
“Actually, I never left the Continent. After Toulouse, the Duke was posted as Ambassador to the Bourbon Court and needed a retinue. I volunteered, and then remained in Paris with the Duchess and the Embassy staff when Old Hookey went on to the Congress of Vienna.”
The young man whistled. “Must have been unpleasant duty. I hear the Frogs grew rather nasty toward Bourbon supporters in general and the English in particular while Boney was drumming up support for his return.”
“Madame de Stael and other returned exiles kept us entertained well enough.” Some of the lovely ladies in her train had even seduced him into a temporary forgetfulness.
Raising an eyebrow, the lieutenant grinned. “Ah, that’s why you lingered. The delights of French damsels notwithstanding, you’re still an Englishman, and must be yearning for your land.”
“Every mortgaged acre of it,” he responded wryly. Indeed, letters from Jeffers, his batman whom he’d sent on ahead after Waterloo, had become increasingly insistent that he must return to begin setting the shambles to order. Now with the peace secured and the regiment ordered home, he could avoid that onerous duty no longer. A duty that might have been a joy, were he able to have the woman he loved beside him. Sarah, the name whispered in his ears like a sigh.
“Is that how things stand? A pity.” The lieutenant shook his head. “Still, if you’ve no sweetheart waiting, you are free to find yourself a wealthy bride. I daresay,” the lieutenant made a show of looking him up and down, “any lady’s papa should be happy to snare you for his daughter, an officer of handsome mien, distinguished title, and service gallantly rendered in that most accomplished of all Hussars regiments, the glorious Tenth.”
So sour was the idea of marrying for money, he had to grit his teeth. “I doubt a scarred and pockets-to-let old soldier like myself shall be accounted quite the catch you claim, but I shall do my possible.”
“Then I shall see you in town for the Season. I should like that. And if you encounter a spot of bother before you find your heiress…” the lieutenant shifted uncomfortably at something he must have seen sparking in Sinjin’s eyes, “don’t hesitate to approach my father. Gossip didn’t overestimate the Earldom’s wealth, and I owe you more than I could ever—”
“Balderdash, ’twas nothing, though I do appreciate the offer. I daresay it won’t come to that.”
“Doubtless not. But I say, do you see it? Over there, through that break in the fog?”
Turning his chin in the direction of the lieutenant’s pointing finger, Sinjin suddenly perceived, looming close ahead, high white cliffs ghostly in the shifting mist. The Dover bluffs.
In spite of himself, the vista held him mesmerized. From within the frozen, stoic lump in his chest that had once been his heart, a frisson of excitement sizzled up.
He was returning to a bankrupt estate and a spendthrift mother, inescapable realities that would likely force him to barter his body and breeding for the gold of a bride he did not want. Yet at this moment he still felt a sense of…limitless possibilities. He must, he concluded acidly, be more the “mad Englishman” than he thought.
In the early morning chill a week later, Sinjin rode his last remaining horse from the offices of his solicitor in the City back to Westminster. As if compelled, he drew rein for a moment on the street before Horse Guards, as unobtrusive now in his nondescript brown jacket and worn riding breeches as the uniformed guards outside Army headquarters were resplendent in scarlet coats and gold lace. None of the pickets glancing casually toward him would suspect his shabby apparel—faded garments he’d worn while riding as an intelligence gatherer—concealed an officer of the Tenth Hussars.
Former officer, he amended. A poignant regret stabbed him, as it had yesterday when, after resigning his commission, for the last time he removed the blue tunic and furred pelisse and packed them away. An outsider now, no longer part of the Army that had been his life this last six years.
Not that he’d miss the war, he thought as he nudged his horse to a trot. Any notions of glamour died long ago with the first man he’d seen killed in battle, and a bloody, brutal business it had been for the five years since. But the camaraderie, the bond forged between men facing privation and danger to struggle in a common cause, and his sense of accomplishment at doing a difficult job well…yes, he would miss those.
Bloody sentimental fool, he thought with a flash of irritation. After the unpalatable news delivered by his solicitor an hour ago, ’twas a good thing he had determined to sell out—even that relatively small bit of cash would be welcome. Jeffers’ laconic letters had not overstated his dire financial condition; if anything, matters were worse than his batman imagined.
He’d already, with a sense of grief nearly akin to the losing of a friend, turned his other horses over to the staff at Tattersall’s for the next sale, keeping only Valiant, the surefooted companion of many a hard march. Unless he took the exceedingly stringent measures outlined in prosaic detail by his man of business, he’d very soon not be able to afford him.
The last of his solicitor’s recommendations was hardly unexpected: find a rich bride. Mr. Walters had even added, with a small smile, the same compliment offered by Alex on the ship last week—that for a man of his birth and address, the procuring of a suitable heiress should prove no very difficult task.
To that end, his man concluded, running a pained eye over Sinjin’s shabby coat and breeches, he believed the beleaguered estate could stand a small advance of funds to allow his Lordship to procure suitable garments for the upcoming Season.
Trussed up like a prize trout, he thought grimly, and realized that despite all his ruminations on the subject, not until this morning had the stark reality struck home. He must marry an heiress, and soon.
True, at odd intervals in the six years since his father’s death revealed the catastrophic total of the late Lord Sandiford’s debts, he’d considered the notion. But each time he’d advanced on the idea only to retreat in distaste, vaguely trusting at some future date he would discover an alternate attack on his pecuniary difficulties that might allow him to outflank the prospect.
Time for such an alternative had run out, Mr. Walters had just demonstrated with chilling clarity. Unless he wished to see the remaining lands and possessions of his ancestors put on the block, Viscount St. John Michael Peter Sandiford must now rig himself out to enter that unholy assemblage of social events known as the Marriage Mart, there to hawk his looks and lineage as shamelessly as a harlot strutting her wares outside a Haymarket theatre.
He took a deep breath and swallowed, the bitter taste of bile in his mouth. No wonder he’d been so reluctant to return to England.
Enough, he told himself. Time to stop bleating like a raw recruit at the first cannonade and get on with the sorry business.
He could drop by the establishments in St. James on his way back to his modest rented rooms at North Audley Street, or perhaps pop in to the Albany and visit Alex. His young lieutenant, plump in the pocket and eager for the beginning of the Season, could doubtless advise him which of the gentlemen’s shops he should patronize to bring his wardrobe up to snuff. Even to his own admittedly non-discriminating eye, in his current attire, the only civilian clothes he possessed, he looked like a groom.
Not exactly husband material for one of the overdressed, overcoiffed and overbejewelled damsels over whose perfumed hands he would soon be bowing. He allowed himself a sardonic smile at the thought of the probable expression on one of those hothouse flowers were he to present himself at her feet in his current garb.
By now he’d reached Piccadilly, but his mood was still too uncertain for company. Perhaps a hard gallop would settle him. At least the air and the bridle path of Hyde Park were still free. Turning his mount, he headed west.
Instead of continuing along Piccadilly, however, he entered the hubbub of traders going to Shepherd’s Market, picking his path north until he reached the relative calm of Curzon Street. As he neared the handsome Georgian house set back from the roadway, he pulled the horse to a halt, his heartbeat accelerating.
’Twas the disorienting changes of the last few days—his life once again turned upside down—that had brought on this fit of black melancholy, he told himself. He’d indulge it but a moment longer and then ride on.
As if in a dream he dismounted, looped Valiant’s reins around a post, and silently approached the quiet dwelling.
Though it was early enough for most of the aristocracy to be still abed, somewhere within those stately walls he knew Sarah would be working. Not his Sarah anymore, the girl who’d grown up his neighbor, friend, and confidante, companion or instigator of dozens of childhood adventures. The girl who’d metamorphosed from boyish hoyden to young lady and taken his heart with her. The lady who for the last three years and three months had been wife to the Marquess of Englemere.
What little was left of that organ he believed long since shattered seemed to convulse, sending a shudder marrow-deep. Ah, sweet Sarah, my one and only love.
She was well, he knew. Though after he rejoined his Regiment three years ago he’d resisted opening her first two letters, intending to destroy them unread, in the end he’d succumbed to the need to preserve at least the feeble link of friendship. Reception of a new letter, full of the most interesting of the events taking place back in London, had rapidly become a high point in the mostly dull routine of his days. He’d kept them all, including the latest received just three weeks ago, tied in a neat package that now resided on the bedside table in his North Audley Street rooms. All but one.
A slight noise at the front door riveted his attention. He’d best be moving along, before someone came out and discovered him standing like a beggar at her gate.
Before he could retrieve his grazing mount, a horse rounded the corner and galloped toward him at a reckless pace. A peddler scurried out of range, his display of pans clanging to the pavement, several housemaids squealed and abandoned their feather dusters on the roadway, and he himself had to step back as the rider pulled the huge black brute of a stallion to a clattering halt.
A rider on a sidesaddle. He looked up at a feminine profile whose classic perfection of shape and smoothness of skin doubtless inspired slavish adoration in men and envy in less-favored damsels. Long curling lashes shielded the Beauty’s eyes, which were turned toward the horse whose neck she patted with one expensively gloved hand.
His lip curling with distaste, Sinjin noted other accoutrements which, given his experience in discharging the bills incurred for his mama’s finery, he knew represented equally lavish expenditures. The wool superfine of her habit, Italian by the look of it, and a sovereign an ell at the least; the dashing bonnet of velvet and Ostrich plumes, the finely-tooled leather of the riding boot in the chased silver stirrup. The price of the gold lace lavishly embellishing the bodice in, he realized, pale imitation of a Hussar’s uniform coat could have fed his unit of skirmishers for a year.
And the stallion—having just undergone the painful business of having his own horses evaluated for auction, he judged that prime bit of blood pawing an impatient hoof before him would fetch upward of five hundred pounds. In addition to being totally unsuitable for a lady’s mount, a fact that precipitous bolt through the London streets had just demonstrated.
Behind the rider, the peddler stoically regathered his pans. Sinjin felt irrational anger flare. What could her lackwit of a papa have been thinking, to purchase such a horse for his daughter? And the chit herself—how dare that pampered, protected, frivolous creature usurp a uniform he had just put away with such pride and regret, a uniform worn by so many in valiant struggle through the sweat and blood and filth of countless battles? He thought of Uxbridge losing a leg and Alastair his arm, of the decimated ranks of the charging Seventh, of the Twenty-seventh Foot who had stood, and died, to a man in their square atop the bluff at St. Jean’s wood.
While she, no doubt, had spent her mornings asleep in her boudoir, her afternoons primping at her mirror, and her evenings dancing until dawn.
Had his brain not been fogged with fury, even one as scornful of beauty as he might have been impressed with the brilliance of the emerald eyes now turning in his direction, or the perfection of the full soft lips opening to speak.
“You, sirrah! Hand me down, if you please, and take my horse to the mews.”
His attention distracted to the butler now opening the door of Sarah’s townhouse, a long, incredulous moment passed before he realized the Beauty was addressing him.
“Take him yourself, Miss,” he spat back.
Still too angry to think, he turned on the heel of his worn boot and strode away. With one motion he snatched up Valiant’s reins and flung himself in the saddle, then spurred his mount toward the park.
Her lips parted in an O of surprise, Clarissa Beaumont watched the tall blond man ride off without a backward glance. Clerk or farmer or—gentleman? At any rate, not the servant she’d taken him to be. Though in that garb, and in front of Sarah’s house where a groom usually awaited her after her morning ride, she could hardly be faulted for the mistake.
With an experienced horsewoman’s eye, she noted the quality of his mount and the effortless grace with which he controlled it. Quite possibly a gentleman, she concluded. Though if he were, he was the rudest and most deplorably dressed she’d ever encountered.
And, she concluded with a wry grin, the most unimpressionable. Her oft-praised beauty had elicited from him none of the awe, astonishment or reverence she’d come to expect after four Seasons as the ton’s reigning Belle.
A flicker of feminine interest stirred. If he were a gentleman, and she were to meet him again, it might be quite interesting.
She saw Glendenning waiting by the open front door and waved as a groom arrived to take Diablo’s reins and hand her down. Before turning to the house, she gave the stallion’s velvet nose one last pat. “Allow my prince an extra ration of mash, Stebbins, if you please. We’ve had a marvelous gallop. And to think, I nearly turned him over to a stranger.”
A stern mouth and a flash of blue eyes was all she’d glimpsed of the man’s face, she mused as she mounted the steps. And a scar—she was quite certain he’d borne a scar above his right eye. A handsome scarred man of mystery, a desperate character right out of the pages of one of Mrs. Edgeworth’s novels.
Her chuckle turned to a groan. Lud, her life had indeed grown dull if she must be weaving gothic fictions about a chance-met stranger. Who was, no doubt, some penniless clerk with a wife and a hopeful family whom she’d never encounter again. With a pang of regret that surprised her, Clarissa dismissed him.
