Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) (18 page)

“You did not. And to obey him? To wed Violetta? You once thought her a fate worse than death.”

“Far worse to have met Grainne and left her behind in sorrow!” William snapped. “This
is
death. But it is my father’s, and I have caused it. Oh, this wretched scheme! This jaunt has ruined lives, Peregrin. Mine among them.”

Peregrin swallowed. He seemed at a loss for words, and William perceived through the haze of his sorrow that he had managed to confound even the sharp-witted, ever-ready Peregrin. The knowledge was diverting enough to get him moving again. He put a hand on the balustrade. “Come,” he said. “I shall bid farewell to my father, and perhaps my return shall bolster him up somehow.”

Led by a silent housemaid, her grey gown leading them like a ghost through the half-lit hallway, the pair walked to the master’s apartments like children fearing punishment, treading lightly, wincing at a squeaking floorboard, looking neither right nor left. Neither knew what to expect. But they certainly feared the worst. 

But when the door had been closed behind them and the earl’s thin hand pushed fretfully at the curtains around his bed, William picked up his head and strode forward with purpose. 

“Father,” he said gravely. “I am sorry to have been absent during your illness.”

Hands spotted with age, frail and boney, wrenched the curtains aside at once. William looked upon his father’s angry face and felt a strange relief. Illness had certainly wasted his figure but not his face. The hawk nose, sharp cheekbones, and firm chin would surely last until the end of days, as would the fierce grey eyes. 

“Sorry you should be,” the old earl snapped. “I have been plagued at by the harpy and her half-wit daughter until I took to my bed to escape her. And then that fool Briggs left my window open. Some nonsense about fresh air! I took a cold in my chest and it has been nothing but draughts of this and potions of that ever since. Fresh air! I should sack Briggs.”

And that was his greeting. It should only have been as he expected. “Do not sack Briggs, Father. He has been your valet since I was a boy. He has always thought of your health and happiness before his. I'm sure he would not have given you a chill on any account.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” the earl said impatiently. “He will have a fine portion when I’m gone, too. I’ve looked out for him and his family, have no fear of that. But enough of servants. Servants do what is expected of them.
You
, boy, have much to atone for. And a wedding license to procure.”

William wet his lips nervously. When had the chamber grown so close? He felt he could scarcely breathe. He swallowed and forced himself to speak lightly. “Father, not this again! You cannot seriously expect me to marry that hare-brained chit.”

But the earl did not respond to his jesting tone. “Indeed I do, boy, and well you know it. This contract has been in place for eighteen years! You cannot expect to break it. Your duty is to the family name, and to me. Will you shrug it once again, and prove to everyone you truly have no honor?”

Honor, honor, and what was honor? William thought frantically. Was honor making a girl love him and then leaving her to wed a man she despised? Or was honor marrying the ones they were promised to by others, no matter how deeply they reviled the match?

He thought he and his father would answer the question differently. 

Remembering Grainne’s red eyes and white face, the empty, dead tone of her voice, he could not see how abandoning her to her fate was honorable. “Father, there would be no honor in a match not just loveless, but with a feeling of contempt. I cannot make her happy.”

“We must make ourselves happy,” the earl said impatiently. “And there is no doubt Violetta does. Listen, boy, I know as well as you that this girl is a simpleton. But they are the easiest to please. Give her a big enough allowance to let her buy her baubles and fripperies, dance with her at least once a week during the season, and you shall content one such as that easy enough.”

The frightening thing, William thought, was that the man was probably right. But even if she could be contented with empty gestures and a full purse, how could he? “I do not think it was so with my mother,” he said quietly. “You deny me the same sort of pleasure you took in your marriage.”

The old earl closed his eyes, and for a moment his rasping breaths came more quickly. William watched his chest rise and fall beneath the white counterpane and waited. Cruel? To remind a dying man of the wife who had gone so long before? Perhaps not, William supposed. Perhaps his father was eager to go and meet his love beyond the curtain. 

Because his parents had been very much in love. Of that, there was no question. Society papers had devoted entire columns to the lovebirds once, their unshakeable devotion and inseparable appearances in society. 

At last the earl opened his eyes, and when he turned his head on his pillow to face his son, they were wet with more than the milkiness of old age. William felt a stab of regret for causing his father pain. But it could not be helped; his whole future was at risk. 

And Grainne’s, by God. For he knew, with sudden certainty, that he would go back for her.
 

“I will not pretend we were not in love,” the earl said finally, and his voice was strained. “I am sorry that you cannot love Violetta. I am sorry.”  He closed his eyes again.  

“His lordship is tired, he must be left to rest,” the nurse said, emerging from her shadowy corner and fixing William with a rebuking glare. William nodded shortly, his tongue in no position to argue with a harridan such as this, and he strode to the door and shoved at it so violently that he did not notice it was ajar, and he did not realize he was in the presence of a spy until he fell into her perfumed bosom. 

William stumbled back from Violetta — for who else could it be? That was Violetta’s scent, sickly-sweet and over-powering, a thousand lilies-of-the-valley where one would have done — and he reeled against the paneled wall, his head nearly striking the brass sconce next to his father's door. The flame of the candle wavered in the breeze his clumsiness created and the whole of the dim hall went dark and then light again, an effect uncanny on his stern ancestors gazing down at him from their gilt frames. 

At
them
. Gazing down at them. 

Violetta was only staring at him, her pale blue eyes round as marbles, her fat lips, painted coral, open in that fish-face he knew so well. Her blonde curls hung fashionably in spiral tendrils down either pink cheek, with its greater mass piled upon her head like a crown. The great expanse of flesh and bosom displayed below would be more appropriate at a ball than in a sickroom, but whatever Violetta’s faults of sensibility, she knew her breasts were her best feature. The robin’s-egg blue gown she wore set off her pink and cream complexion wonderfully, but all William could see was the blank confusion in her bulging eyes. 

He could never marry such emptiness of spirit.

Not when he had left behind soul and wit and passion. 

He saw movement from the corner of his eye. Peregrin! His friend came out of the bedchamber in hushed discussion with the nurse, then she left him to return to the earl. Peregrin looked up and took in the scene in the hallway with unconcealed horror. 

And then Violetta giggled. 

It was an affected, false thing, and William had heard its performance more than he could recall, at every ball or party or luncheon they had ever jointly attended. It was meant for him, to show off to her cluster of girlfriends that her fiancé was walking by. It was a summons for him to attend her, to offer her punch or a dance or to walk on the balcony, and one that society’s rules would not allow him to ignore. It was the surest proof of his shackles.

He turned away. 

The giggles turned into a gasp. 

William began to walk down the hall, feeling more weary than he had after a day in the stables. On either side of him, disapproving Archwoods glowered down at him, faces flickering in the uncertain light, but he was determined to put his back to them. Them and their twisted notions of honor. 

“William!” Violetta screeched. “William, come back this instant.”

He did not turn. 

“William! I shall tell my father! I heard what you said about me!” 

He heard the nurse come out and dress her down in no uncertain terms for making so much noise outside of a sickroom. She sniffed audibly at the woman and then came racing after him. He heard her footsteps and did not turn. 

Violetta came up to his side, panting with the exertion of running up a hallway in stays and tight shoes. She must have broken a sweat, as well, for the smell of lilies-of-the-valley was overpowering. He would not allow Grainne lilies-of-the-valley, he decided. Not that anything as vain as putting on scent would ever have occurred to Grainne. No matter, they would not stop at London, but live at his country house. They would ride every day. William walked on, mind full of plans he could not think how to put into place.

“William,” Violetta huffed impatiently, straightening her skirts as she struggled to walk at his pace. “William, for God’s sake! Have you gone utterly mad? First to disappear and then to come here and say such things about me! To say I am a half-wit! To say you will not marry me! Oh! William! You break my heart.” And she squeezed out a few tears. 

They had reached the head of the stairs. Nearly to the front door, and escape. But he could not simply leave this foolish child to weep on the landing. William turned to her and she immediately tipped up her chin, as if expecting a kiss.   

“My lady,” he began, and the formality of his address and tone caused her to rearrange her face and look serious for once. “My lady, I am sorry for saying hurtful things. I was angry with my father, not with you.”

Relief flooded her face and he went on before she could savor too much of a victory. “While I am not without gratitude for the magnitude of your feelings for me, I am afraid I cannot wed you. I understand that we have a contract, but I fear it cannot be honored.”

His voice nearly cracked on the word “honor,” but he recovered himself. “In truth, I have formed an attachment to another, and I cannot in good faith abandon her.”

The alabaster brow puckered. “As you would abandon me!”

“Ah, but your circumstances could not be more different. You have beauty and title and fortune to recommend you. This unfortunate lady does not have your advantages. She would more acutely feel my abandonment in every way.” Violetta enjoyed rescuing puppies and kittens and other small things; perhaps he could appeal to her sensibility by making Grainne seem a tragic figure.

“She is poor?” Violetta seemed to be trying to follow the conversation, which was unusual for her. 

“She has no fortune,” William sighed melodramatically. Poor wasn’t the right word at all, but that would be splitting hairs with a lover of luxury like Violetta. 

“She must work for a living?”

“Indeed she has done that.”

“She is like Cinderella!”

“Who?”

 
“A French fairy tale,” Violetta said absently, her mind already turning to other subjects. “But there! I have my trosseau ordered already. And the sweetest new gowns. I must admit I already wore one, to Lady Hammersmith’s ball. Oh! If you had only come we could have danced and had such a gay time. Although I quite enjoyed Lord Powers. He said I was an exquisite flower. He
said
,” and Violetta lowered her voice to a very loud whisper: “He
said
that you must be a jolly fool, or taken hostage by pirates, to leave my side even for a moment. There, what do you think of that!”

William thought that Edward Carmichael, Lord Powers, was absolutely correct. He was a fool. But not for leaving Violetta’s side. “Lord Powers, my, my! You know he stands to inherit a dukedom if his uncle dies without issue,” William said in impressed tones. Then he sighed. “You could do better than me, Violetta, if you were free to choose your own husband.”

“So I could!” Violetta looked struck with inspiration. She let her dewy mouth fall open while she thought. William supposed there were some men who might find her attractive. If they did not do much fishing.

And especially if their jealousy was aroused. Had Powers been moving in on his turf all the time William had been away? If so, this might be the perfect time to rouse him to declare his love. And free William with honor. “Violetta,” William said gravely, “I believe I would like to take you to the next party on your calendar.”

Violetta simpered.

Grainne had cried her eyes out, and begged until her voice was hoarse and her knees sore, but it was no use. Her father was implacable. She would wed Mr. Maxwell before Michaelmas, and she would only leave her room for meals until that happy day arrived. He was taking no chances with a wayward daughter a second time. 

Grainne was a prisoner in her own bedchamber. 

She sat in her chair by the fire, chin on her fist, ignoring the timid taps at the door. It was only Emer with her interminable tea trays. Poor little Emer, so disappointed that her mistress would not take her to any grand and glittering houses, to the hustle and bustle of Dublin! Instead she would only go down the road a few furlongs and take up housekeeping in Boyle House, which was really only a little bigger than than the master’s house, and had a
much
darker and pokier kitchen, besides. Grainne had heard her talking about the house to Mrs. Kinney while the two had been shaking out rugs behind the house. Then she had leaned too far out the window and her shadow moved across the lawn, causing Mrs. Kinney to shut up her mouth and say no more. 

And then the weather had really turned bitterly cold and Grainne had been forced to pull the heavy curtains across her windows to keep out the drafts. Which left her sitting in the dark, brooding upon the flames. Thinking of what might have been. Thinking of William. 

Oh, how she must have disgusted him, in truth! To pledge her love and her body and her honor to a horse-thief, to connive and scheme in every way to escape William’s honorable and gentle attempts to rescue her from her own foolishness, and she had rebuffed him until the very end, until her punishment was absolute and her escape was impossible, and begging him only then to save her.