Amanda Scott (2 page)

She found the Earl of Rendlesham pacing the floor in his bookroom, his ruddy face creased in thought, his large hands clasped behind his back, causing his waistcoat to gap over his stomach where the buttons strained. A cheerful fire crackled on the hearth, and spring sunlight streamed through the tall, leaded windows to spill across the bright blue-and-green Axminster carpet, but his lordship looked more harried than cheerful.

“There you are,” he said brusquely, straightening to glare at her. “What a time you have been! Parson will be ready to begin the ceremony in a few moments.”

“I beg your pardon, Papa,” Anne said. “Dressing always does take longer than one thinks it will.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose it does. Perhaps you had better sit down,” he added, gesturing distractedly at a chair.

“Will you think me very disobedient, sir, if I do not?” she asked, smiling at him. “Maisie will be put out if I wrinkle my skirt before the ceremony.”

“Do as you please,” he said. “The sooner this business is done, the better I shall like it. I’ve any number of other things I ought to be doing.”

“Problems, Papa? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Dash it all, I don’t want your help, just your obedience. I don’t want to hear any nonsense about this being a hasty affair, or about being afraid to go off alone with Lord Michael.”

Anne looked at him in surprise. “But I have never said I would not obey you, Papa. Indeed, I know it is my duty to marry, particularly when such an excellent connection has been made available to me. I know how fortunate I am to make such a match, and if there is haste—though I have not complained of it—it is only because Lord Michael needs a mama for his niece and nephew.”

Rendlesham shoved a hand through thick, graying hair that he disdained to cover with a wig now that the price of powder had become extortionate, and said ruefully, “I suppose you haven’t complained, but having listened to your mother—and to your sisters when they married—until I was well nigh distracted, I assumed your complaints would echo theirs. I ought to have known they would not. You are a good girl, Anne. Indeed, I do not know what we shall do here without you to make peace when the others choose to quarrel. But, as I told your mama, it is quite rare luck to find such a good match for a third daughter.”

“Does Mama agree that Lord Michael is a good match for me?”

“Of course she does! She is convinced that whatever rakish propensities he has not already left behind him in order to manage his nephew’s affairs will be put right out of his head by marriage. Furthermore, not only is he the son of a duke, but the lad’s got a respectable estate of his own. Not a large one, mind you, but it ought to bring in quite a snug little income now that he seems of a mind to manage it properly. You’ll be comfortable, in any event, since you will be living for some years, at least, at Upminster Priory, which is a ducal seat, after all.”

“I know I will be comfortable, Papa. Indeed, thanks to my godfather’s generosity, and yours, my own portion is quite respectable enough for comfort.”

He did not meet her gaze. “As to that,” he said, turning toward the fire, “I know you assumed you would retain a certain amount of control over your dowry, as I arranged for your sisters to do when they were married; however, as you know, your godfather left all such arrangements to me, and there has been a slight alteration in the original plan, I’m afraid.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Michael had some pressing problems …” He glanced at her over his shoulder, adding with a grimace, “An expensive young man, I believe, before he was brought so rudely to his senses by his brother’s untimely death. That need not concern you, of course, but I found it necessary to give in to certain demands he made with regard to the settlements.”

“I see.”

“I do not suppose that you see at all,” he said, turning back with a sigh, “but I thought it best to tell you myself. I hope the news don’t distress you.”

She was shaken, albeit not by the news that her husband-to-be had a rakish reputation, or that he was expensive. In her experience, many young men shared those qualities, and despite the fact that her great-aunt Martha had married a rake, and in direct consequence, had died of a dread disease, Anne did not anticipate such an eventuality for herself. But to know that she would have no say in how her money was spent was far more alarming, for she was well aware that to have even the smallest authority would give her an independence in her marriage that she would otherwise lack. She knew better than to express her feelings to the earl, however, or indeed to anyone in her family, for they were all too concerned with their own needs to consider hers. She reassured him, as it was her habit to do, and agreed at once when he said they ought to join the others in the family chapel.

The group awaiting them was a small one, since only immediate family members and close friends had been invited to witness the marriage of Lady Anne Davies to Lord Michael St. Ledgers. Anne smiled at one familiar face after another, hoping she looked more composed than she felt as she walked at her father’s side up the narrow center aisle, preceded by her eldest sister, Catherine, who was to support her through the ceremony.

The younger of her two sisters, Beth, standing between her tall, handsome husband, Tony, and Lady Rendlesham in the front row, grinned impishly over her shoulder at Anne. Beside Tony stood Catherine’s husband, Lord Crane, and next to him, two of Anne’s three brothers. Harry, at twenty-three, was the eldest and had acquired some dignity, but Bernard shifted impatiently from foot to foot, wanting the ceremony to begin.

Ahead of her, standing between the one friend who had come with him to Rendlesham and the thin, elderly parson who would perform the ceremony, was her husband-to-be. Though she had exchanged only a handful of sentences with Lord Michael in the short time they had been acquainted, once the ceremony was over, she would be his wife, subject to his every command until death parted them. The thought sent a shiver up her spine, but whether it was a thrill of anticipation or one of terror, Anne herself did not know.

Dark-haired Lord Michael St. Ledgers, fashionably attired in buff knee breeches and a dark, well-fitting coat, towered over both his friend, Sir Jacob Thornton, and Parson Hale. His broad shoulders were squared, his carriage that of a military man—which indeed, he had been for a few years after leaving Oxford. He was nine-and-twenty, nine years older than Anne, and although his stern demeanor made him look older, she thought him handsome. As she approached, his gaze caught hers and held it.

She was aware that Sir Jacob also watched her. Indeed, he seemed to make a habit of watching her, and his manner was not what she was accustomed to in a gentleman, for his style was too familiar. A sandy-haired man of medium height and florid complexion, older than her bridegroom by some ten years or more, he had laughed when Lord Michael presented him, saying he thought it a great kindness in himself to have agreed to support him through the ordeal of his wedding, and was doing so only because he had pressing parliamentary business in Derby and Rendlesham took him no more than twenty miles out of his way. He had lost no time in informing everyone that he was a Member of Parliament, making it clear that he held an exalted opinion of his stature.

But even awareness of Sir Jacob’s interest was not enough just then to divert her attention from Lord Michael, whose eyes were the darkest blue she had ever seen, making them look almost black until she got near him. They were set deep beneath his dark eyebrows, and the rest of his features were sharply chiseled. He looked for a moment as if he had been carved from stone, but suddenly, as if he sensed her increasing anxiety, she detected a barely perceptible softening in his appearance.

He did not smile, but his firm, well-shaped lips relaxed, and she felt her body relax in response. She had not expected him to woo her, for theirs was not a love match like her sister Beth’s to Tony, or a union arranged after months of negotiation like Catherine’s to Lord Crane. Catherine, after all, as the earl’s eldest daughter, her portion immense, had been the catch of the Season the year she made her entrance to society. And Beth, albeit with a smaller portion like Anne’s, had not only her own vivacious demeanor to assure her of a good match but the good luck to fall in love with a man of fortune who adored her.

Anne’s marriage would not be like either of theirs. As the earl’s third daughter—an unenviable position in any family—she could scarcely count herself an heiress, and she had formed no attachment to anyone during the two London Seasons granted her at her grandmother’s insistence. Aware that she lacked a passionate nature (and generally grateful for the fact), Anne had not expected to fall in love. Moreover, Lord Michael had made it clear that he was marrying out of a strong sense of duty, and was no more in love with her than she was with him.

Indeed, how he could have been in love with her, or she with him, was a puzzlement. They had scarcely met. Moreover, what little she knew of him included the fact that even before he was out of full mourning he had drawn up a list of possible brides as suggested by members of his family and friends—of whom only Sir Jacob had attended the ceremony—and had selected from it one who would meet his needs without demanding a long engagement. She was, in other words, no more to him than the best bride he could acquire at speed to serve as mother to his bereft niece and nephew. She was also a woman generally accounted to be docile, whose fortune could meet at least some of his most pressing financial needs. Clearly, he wanted a convenient marriage; and, since Anne had long since come to believe that any marriage was preferable to the single state, she meant to get along with him well enough so they could enjoy at least an amiable partnership.

The ceremony took less time than she had expected. When Lord Michael slipped a pretty pearl ring on her finger, the warmth of his hands startled her, briefly reminding her that the ceremony was real, not a fantasy. A moment later, Parson Hale presented the couple to the witnesses and everyone adjourned to a room opening directly onto Anne’s beloved gardens for the wedding breakfast, so called despite its taking place after noon.

The next hour passed swiftly, and although the garden room was Anne’s favorite, she scarcely heeded her surroundings. She ate and drank what was put before her, and replied when she was addressed, but it was as if she were inhabiting someone else’s body, observing strangers. By the time she hurried upstairs to change her dress for the journey to Upminster Priory, located in the northern part of Derbyshire, she felt as if she had been participating in a dream, and someone else’s dream at that.

Less than half an hour later she was ready. Pausing only to pick up the carpetbag containing her portfolio, and to slip her small black cat inside, she hurried downstairs to make her farewells. Having kissed her and given her his blessing, Rendlesham clapped her new husband on the back and said jovially, “You’ve got yourself a good little wife there, lad. I’ll wager she never gives you a lick of trouble.”

“No, sir, I’m sure she won’t.”

Anne experienced a sudden desire to tell them both that she would behave as she pleased now that she was a married lady, but caught the words before they leapt from her tongue, astonished at herself for even having thought them.

Then, in what seemed little less than the blink of an eye, they had said good-bye to everyone—including Sir Jacob, who was bound at once for Derby—and she found herself in a well-sprung post-chaise, next to her new husband, with her carpetbag at her feet. For the next several minutes, while the postillions negotiated first the circular sweep in front of Rendlesham House and then the oak-and-rhododendron-lined gravel drive leading to the main road, neither occupant of the chaise attempted to speak. But when it lurched onto the highroad and Anne turned to look back, her companion said, “There is nothing to see now, I’m afraid. The second carriage will not follow for some time yet.”

His voice was deep and pleasant. Each time she heard it, an odd little tremor awakened somewhere deep in her midsection. Striving now to ignore it, she settled back, turning her head to look at him as she said, “I wanted to take a last look at the park, since I do not know when I will return.”

“I thought you might be missing your maid. I must suppose you have never been alone with a man in a carriage before.”

She had another sudden, uncharacteristic urge, this time to tell him she had been alone with all sorts of men, hundreds of times, but she suppressed it, feeling heat in her cheeks as she did. Such wicked impulses were most unlike her.

He did not appear to notice her blushes, however, or if he did, she supposed he attributed them to maidenly modesty. He did not even seem to notice that she had not replied to his comment. He was looking out the window, not looking at her at all.

She was accustomed to silence, accustomed, too, to being ignored. For many years she had mediated her siblings’ battles and arguments, catered to the older one, dried the younger ones’ tears, and listened to their complaints and their dreams, even though they seemed to have no time to listen to hers. From the instant she had known she was to be married, however, whenever the demands of her family members had grown tiresome, she had solaced her feelings with the hope that she would be more valued as a wife than she had been as sister or daughter. But judging by Lord Michael’s present air of detachment, that would not be the case. Feeling her temper stir, she ruthlessly repressed it and said quietly, “I daresay our people will not be far behind, sir. I have not met your man, but my maid is efficient and had little left to do. How long will our journey take us?”

“About four hours. The Priory is in north Derbyshire, you know, several miles west of Chesterfield on the Sheffield Road.”

“My father said we would be living there. Is that right?”

He looked at her at last. “I beg your pardon if I seem a trifle distracted. I was just reflecting on how quickly life changes from one moment to the next. No doubt your father also told you I stand guardian to my late brother’s children, one of whom is the present Duke of Upminster. I believe it best for him to grow up at the Priory, particularly since I am also his primary trustee and bear the responsibility for looking after his properties during his minority. Therefore, for the present at least, we will certainly live there.”