Solemn Vows (18 page)

“Well, so long as you come,” she said, feigning a pout. “As hostess I have taken the liberty of placing your name first on my dance card. I trust you do not mind?”

“I would be honoured to have the first dance with the receiver general’s wife.”

“I’ll try to make it a waltz,” she said with a leer. “It’s so much more intimate than a galop or a reel, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure you dance well, whatever the form.”

She stared at him as if deciding how she should take this remark, then smiled and said in a more serious tone, “Have you discovered the name of my daughter’s secret lover yet?”

“I have one or two suspicions, ma’am, but no confirmation.”

“Could you throw me a hint? From the blush on Chastity’s cheek these days, I feel it may come too late.”

Marc replied quickly, almost priggishly, “I could not, madam, compromise the reputation of any of the good men under—”

Prudence frowned and then stepped onto the road, coming up close to Marc beside the carriage. “Jesus, fella,” she hissed, “you don’t need to spread that mannerly crap all over me. We ain’t in Mayfair.” A gust of perfume made Marc gasp, as she stretched up and kissed him on the chin, permitting him a frontal glimpse of her barely harnessed breasts.

“That’s for being a naughty boy,” she laughed, before turning towards her own carriage, which had just pulled up.

Marc watched her leave, annoyed, because, in spite of himself, he had been momentarily aroused.

Angeline came out of the dress shop, unaware of what had just taken place, though the teenaged groom was still gawking. Marc helped her aboard, and they moved off up the busy street. Angeline’s chatter about ribbons and furbelows and the hat she was planning to buy today was now pleasantly diverting. So much so that, as they began to slow down in front of the new millinery shop, Marc did not see or hear the pounding of hooves or the clatter of wooden wheels bouncing wildly until it was almost too late. The rear portion of the runaway vehicle skidded into the governor’s carriage and knocked it upwards and over with a jarring collision, pulling its horses to their knees. Marc just had time
to grasp Angeline and follow the arc of the carriage as it careened and slammed onto the boardwalk with a murderous thump amid the squeal of terri fied animals. He hurled himself sideways and tumbled onto the road, landing in a pool of soft dirt, and breaking Angeline’s fall with his own body. Dazed but thinking hard, he peered down the street at the disappearing wagon and saw its driver—in overalls and a straw hat—hauling futilely on the reins and crying havoc. Then surprisingly, the “runaway” team veered neatly to the left down Bay Street, still racing but not without guidance. At least it seemed so to Marc as his head swam and his vision suddenly blurred. As he rolled over to check on Angeline, he saw Ensign Hilliard galloping across King Street towards them. Where had he come from? Had Hilliard been following him? Or following Angeline?

At this point, as a curious and concerned throng began to close in around them, Angeline tried to raise herself out of the only mud puddle on the street, sighed loudly, and sank back in a faint. Marc lunged in time to catch her firmly in his arms, at which her thick lashes opened to reveal pale- blue eyes with just the hint of a twinkle in them.

“Are you all right?” Hilliard panted as he knelt down beside them.

“No bones broken, Ensign. But don’t hang about here, get after that wagon!”

Hilliard jumped to the task and hurried away. Marc struggled to his feet with Angeline still limp in his arms. Several
sturdy men had freed the horses and righted the carriage. Miraculously, it, too, was in one piece.

“Someone please fetch the lady a glass of water,” Marc said just as Angeline swooned again and he had to drop to one knee to catch her. This time she pulled his face down towards her and kissed him lightly on the cheek. The onlookers applauded.

“Would the lady like to come inside our shop and rest?” said a familiar voice. With Angeline still wrapped around him, Marc looked up to see who the proprietor of the millinery shop might be. There, standing over him with an expression of intense curiosity and amused concern, was the face that had haunted him night and day for the three long months of winter.

It was Beth Smallman.

“Fallen in love again?” she enquired.

B
eth and an older woman—white- haired, sweet- faced—helped Angeline into the millinery shop. At the sight of her mud- splattered skirt, the girl began to weep. Then her whole body trembled, and she started to sob in earnest. The shop door closed resolutely, and the curious had to be content with watching Marc stagger to his feet, more dazed by the mysterious reappearance of Beth Smallman than by the accident.

“Where’s the driver?” Marc said, suddenly remembering the groom, who had been sitting on the bench at the front of the barouche.

“Here, sir,” the young man said, brushing off his livery. His face was pasty white. “I’m so sorry—”

“It was not you who struck the carriage,” Marc said reassuringly.

“But I saw it coming, sir, and my tongue went stiff as a plank. All I could do was jump and save myself.”

“And I’m happy that you did, son. There’s no need to wring your hands over it. I saw the runaway myself and just had time to latch on to Miss Hartley.”

“But the wagon’s ruined!” the lad despaired.

“Not entirely,” Marc said. Several burly men had arrived on the scene and were sorting out the tangle of harness and gear, while another stroked the noses of the frightened horses. Marc gave the collapsible leather roof a tug. “This rig won’t be keeping off any rain for a while, but I think the creature itself will live long enough to get us home.”

Someone came out of the dry- goods store with a pitcher of water and two glasses.

Controlling his own shakes as best he could, Marc was about to leave the groom sitting on the boardwalk with a drink in hand and a mothering woman at either shoulder when he saw Ensign Hilliard come trotting up King Street towards him. An even bigger crowd had now formed, and Hilliard had to force his mount through to Marc.

“Were you able to catch him up?” Marc asked.

“I caught up to the wagon, sir. And the horses, poor devils.”

“But no driver?”

“Someone saw him headed towards the docks, but I couldn’t find him. Nobody knew who he was.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Marc said, and the same thought lay unspoken between him and Hilliard: Was the “accident” deliberate? And if so, who was the target? “Most likely he saw my uniform and realized he had struck an officer, and then panicked and fled.”

Hilliard nodded but looked doubtful.

“But surely he’ll sneak back for his horses and vehicle,” Marc suggested.

“Ensign Parker was with me when we saw the collision, sir. We were on an errand for the governor. I’ll have Parker stand watch on the wagon until one of the city constables can take over. We’ll find the culprit, don’t worry.”

“Good idea, Ensign. But don’t you leave just yet.” With that Marc parted the crowd and entered the sanctuary of the millinery shop.

Inside, the older woman was brushing as much mud off Angeline’s skirt as she could while making soothing maternal noises. Beth was holding Angeline’s gloveless right wrist gently and rubbing it with some sharp-smelling unguent. The girl’s sobs had subsided, and she smiled adoringly at Marc through a scrim of grateful tears.

“She’s just shaken up,” Beth said. “And bruised her wrist a little.”

“I’m fine, really,” Angeline said, her eyes still fixed on Marc.

“Are you well enough to travel back to Government House?”

Angeline nodded angelically.

Marc then led her carefully back out onto the street, where few of the spectators seemed to have relinquished their place. Marc called Hilliard over.

“The carriage appears to be drivable,” Marc said. “Walk the horses and Miss Hartley back to Government House, inform Sir Francis that there’s been an accident, and have Dr. Withers examine her.”

“Yes, sir,” Hilliard snapped, and leapt to Angeline’s side to assist her up into the jittery carriage.

If Hilliard was infatuated with the governor’s ward, Marc thought, it was just as well he was heading off for Brantford and farther fields on Monday morning. For it was an infatuation that would do his career little good.

“Are you not coming with us?” Angeline asked.

“No, Miss. The groom will sit with you if you feel faint.”

The groom was most pleased to accept this responsibility. “Where are you going, then?” Angeline said with a little pout that reassured Marc the girl was recovering rapidly.

“I’m going back into the shop to see a woman about a hat,” Marc said.

M
ARC SAT ACROSS FROM
B
ATHSHEBA
M
CCRAE
S
MALLMAN
in a sparsely furnished room that served as an office and
temporary retreat at the rear of the shop—much as he had five months earlier sat in the simple sunshine of her farm kitchen in Crawford’s Corners. Now, as then, the sun poured lavishly through a south window and backlit the slim figure and copper hair of the woman he had been drawn to from the instant he saw her and heard her speak, like Cordelia, in a voice ever soft and low. Now, as then, she poured him a cup of tea and served him a scone with homemade huckle-berry jam—as if long months of separation and silence had not intervened.

Marc could think of absolutely nothing to say other than to mumble a brief and garbled account of how he and Angeline happened to arrive entwined and dishevelled on her doorstep. She listened politely and observed him with the gentle skepticism that he so admired and out of which flowed her humour and her candour.

When he paused sufficiently, she said almost solemnly, “I owe you an explanation, Marc.”

“Not at all,” Marc said bravely. “You made me no promises.”

“I didn’t open your letters,” she said.

“Erastus wrote me back. He said he thought you just needed time.” Erastus Hatch was her neighbour, who had helped Marc during his first investigation into the mysterious death of Beth’s father- in- law, Joshua Smallman.

“That is so. I’d lost a husband and then a man who was a father to me. I needed grieving time. But that’s not the real
reason I didn’t open your letters.” She looked across at him until he raised his eyes and held on to her steady gaze. “I was afraid to.”

“But after a while everybody stopped writing,” Marc said with just a touch of self-pity.

“I am sorry for that: I asked them not to write.”

“But why?”

“Because I’d made arrangements to come here and start a new life. I didn’t want to complicate yours.”

“You’ve been here since March?” Marc was astonished.

Beth laughed. “Only since April, actually. Oh, I knew we would meet eventually. But you must believe me when I say I have not been deliberately secreting myself away from you.”

“Oh, I do.”

“You and I do not exactly move in the same circles here in Toronto.”

“But I’ve ridden right past this place a hundred times since April, and I’ve overheard women discussing the new bonnet shop more than once!”

“But you haven’t had occasion to purchase one,” she said in her familiar half- teasing way.

“Or, until today, to accompany a lady to do so.”

“You didn’t notice, then, that this shop was next door to my father- in-law’s dry- goods store?”

“My God, so it is!” Marc was delighted that his surprise once again brought a smile to her face. Joshua Smallman
had operated a dry-goods establishment on King Street for many years. Since his own arrival here thirteen months ago, Marc had been in the store several times and had met the proprietor. Only now, though, did he remember that Beth—after protracted legal proceedings—had inherited his estate, including the dry-goods store adjacent.

“This shop is part of the same building that Father owned,” Beth said, as if reading Marc’s thoughts. “We leased out the dry- goods section, set up for ourselves in the smaller space, and moved into the apartment above us.”

“But you must have seen me,” Marc said.

“Oh, yes, I did. Many times. Mostly from the shop window as you rode or marched on by.”

“Yet you did not—”

Beth’s reply was barely a whisper: “I wanted to. More than once.”

“My God, why didn’t you? You must have known how I felt—feel—about you.”

Beth looked down as if contemplating what she ought to say next, or how. Neither had touched their tea. “That has never been a problem, though I do hear you’ve been paying court to a beautiful and intelligent young heiress.”

“But no one knows about—”

“I’m afraid everybody does,” Beth said with a sad smile. “All the great ladies of the town pass through our doors here. And they’re mighty fond of their gossip.”

“I see. Well, then, what they don’t know is that Eliza
and I are just good friends. In fact, I like her for many of the same reasons I admire you.” Marc realized only as he spoke these last words that they were undeniably true. The principal difference seemed to be that Eliza elicited as much brotherly affection and respect as passion, while Beth evoked affection, respect, and something else he could not put into words.