The Companion (38 page)

Of course, he did not care for her. Every time her fancy got the better of her, she returned to that one stark fact.
“A marriage in name only . . . unencumbered . . .”
The words echoed in her mind. He had been embarrassed by her poverty on Tuesday night and the fact that she was despised socially for her dress, her manners . . . Dear God! Of course he couldn’t love her.

She thought about her father for the first time in days. Guilt stabbed at her. She used to think about him a dozen times a day. What an ungrateful child to forget him so! She longed for the acceptance she had taken for granted in the life he had built for her. As she was alone in the house except for the servants, alone in London except for the bare acquaintance she had asked to stand up with her and the man most women would run screaming from . . . the longing for the comfort of her father’s gruff tut-tutting, telling her to keep her chin up, overwhelmed her. Perhaps for the first time since her father’s death, she cried, cried for him, cried
for herself, cried for the life she would never know again. And they weren’t just those attractive tears that run down one’s cheeks. Sobs racked her and she wrapped her arms around her body for comfort. There was none.

Lying on her bed, hiccupping from the tears, she slept at last, exhausted by grief held in too long, unhappiness suppressed during her sojourn in her aunt’s house, and her most recent unrealistic hopes now doused by her sense of practical reality.

She was wakened by a tapping at the door. Shadows of late afternoon in February stretched across the floor. “What . . . what is it?”

“Packages for you, miss,” came the footman’s voice.

“I shall be with you in a moment!” she called. She glanced at the clock. Half past three! She struggled up and glanced in the mirror. Her eyes were only a little swollen. She splashed water on her face from her basin, smoothed her gray cambric gown, and presented herself in the downstairs hall. Servants hovered around stacks of boxes, big and small, wrapped with brown paper and twine.

“They are all addressed to you, miss,” the upstairs girl said, her eyes round.

“To me?” She peered at them. True! Who could have sent them? A footman, James, silently passed her a card. The servants were suffused with excitement.

Beth flushed.
“The Right Honorable Ian Rufford,”
the card said, then handwritten: “With the compliments of the groom.”

“Could you take them upstairs, James, if you please?” She turned, then asked shyly, “Polly, do you think you could help me dress? I am so pressed for time.”

Polly gave a huge smile, glanced at the others with a superior air, and said, “O’ course, miss. I am quite a hand with hair, I am.”

They trailed James and his huge precarious burden up the stairs. “I’ll have a carriage at the door at ha’ past four sharp,” James promised as he laid the parcels on the bed.

“Thank you.” Beth smiled, a little wavery but a smile
nonetheless. She turned to the packages. “I suppose I should open these. Polly, can you get out my pink dress?” She took a small scissors from her needlework bag and cut the string of the largest package. The tissue paper inside revealed a satin not white and not quite golden but a rich color like buttery cream. Polly gasped. Beth held her breath as she pulled the shoulders of the dress up and let the heavy fabric fall. It was edged with Brussels lace and quite shockingly décolleté. The waist was the new lowered style, halfway between breasts and true waist, with an overskirt of more lace in that rich creamy color. The sleeves were lace alone, long and tight in the latest fashion.

“Beautiful,” Polly whispered, tossing the pink one onto a chair. “I didn’t never see a wedding dress in just that shade, but Lord it will be perfect for you.”

Beth’s throat was full. She laid the dress out on the bed. Wordless, they set about the other packages. Delicate kid slippers in supple leather of the same rare color, stockings, gloves, exquisite silk underthings, a tiny beaded reticule, a long cloak in creamy wool lined with sable that came with a huge sable muff, and the hat! Frothy cream perfection, it looked as though its lace and feathers and shining ribbons might melt at any moment.

At last there were only tiny boxes left. Polly was still giggling in delight, but Beth could hardly breathe. One small box held a string of pearls. Not just any pearls but large, lustrous cream-colored pearls that matched the dress perfectly. They were accompanied by pearl and diamond drop earrings and pearls and diamonds on the ends of golden hairpins to wear in her hair. They were far too expensive. Her debt suddenly oppressed her. He had offered for her without loving her and felt obligated to make sure she did not embarrass him. It was almost too much.

“Well, lordy, miss. Ain’t you going to put them on? It’s nearly four o’clock.”

She managed a smile. “Of course.”

The silk chemise caressed her skin. The dress was heavy. It pressed her breasts up until they swelled into the neckline.
Polly laid the pearls around her neck. Beth hooked the earrings on her ears. Polly sat her down, unbraided and brushed her hair, then wound it in a knot that dripped ringlets, fastened with the jeweled pins. She pulled curls out to the side and rolled them into tidy ringlets to frame Beth’s face. She looked at her reflection, round-eyed. The color of the dress made her skin glow. Her green-gold eyes seemed huge in her face, her dark hair heavy and rich. Polly carefully set the frothy hat at a rakish angle and tied the satin ribbons under Beth’s chin.

Beth stood. How had he ordered a dress that fit so exactly? Had he used the dressmaker her aunt frequented? How had he known? Beth stopped halfway to the bed. He
could
not know from the time when he had undressed her in Gibraltar! Oh, dear! She flushed. “The cloak, Polly.”

“You aren’t never going to hide that dress before the boys gets to see you looking like Cinderella, are you?” Polly accused. “I’ll just take it down for you.”

A soft rap sounded on the door. “Carriage, miss.”

Beth felt pressed on every side. She was marrying a vampire, for God’s sake, a man every woman in her right mind would call evil, and she was going off to Africa on some insane chase that might well end in death. And anyway, a man who could order women’s underthings and knew how dresses would fit her was not respectable enough to marry. Even worse, her marriage to that man would be a bargain only. She wanted to burst into tears again.

Beth realized her brows were knit and her shoulders tight. She let out a chuckle under her breath. She was turning into the kind of woman who had vapors and went into a decline. Silly cow! She was marrying a man who had a parasite in his blood—a disease, albeit a strange one. She was going to Africa to explore new mysteries, just as she had always done, as she longed to do again. And if her husband was not like to love her, well, that was a fate no worse than thousands of women embraced wholeheartedly every day. This was an eminently practical arrangement, and she intended to make the most of what it gave her: a chance to return to the land
and the occupation she loved, a chance to finally find her father’s lost city. She would not dream of love from Ian Rufford. Nor would she have the vapors.

“Thank you, Polly. I swear I could never have arranged my hair so charmingly myself. You have a real talent.” She smiled at the girl as plain, she noticed, as she was herself.

Polly preened and blushed. “I hopes someday to be a dresser, miss.”

“If I am ever in a position to make a recommendation for you, I shall certainly do so.”

Beth went down the stairs carefully, smiled wryly, and shrugged under the stares and murmurs from the help gathered in the hall. Even the cook peered round the door casing to the kitchen stairs. Edwards opened the door into the twilight as the servants broke into discreet applause. Polly lifted the cloak around Beth’s shoulders. James stood grinning at the open door of a carriage provided with fine black-liveried drivers. It was by no means a hired hackney coach.

“What, what carriage is this?” she sputtered, looking about her.

“It came a quarter hour ago. Sent by Mr. Rufford.”

The driver touched his high-crowned beaver hat. “St. James’s Church it is, miss.”

Beth stepped up into the carriage. No musty squabs for her but rich red upholstery that one sank into. The stairs were lifted in, the door closed, and they were off. Alone in the closed carriage, Beth put her fear aside. She had made her choice. There was no going back. Life had already changed irrevocably, just as it had changed the moment her father died. One must make the best of things. It was very nice to know that at least one looked as well as one could, being dreadfully short, with brown skin and oddly colored eyes.

It was not far to the church, but the streets were crowded, as it was the hour when members of the fashionable set were coming home from their rides in Hyde Park. Several young men peered into the carriage quite rudely to get a better look at her. She was too busy being nervous about arriving at the
church too early to mind them. What if Mr. Rufford was not there? She suddenly realized that she had no one to give her away. So be it. She faced her future alone.

Christopher Wren’s church came into view on Jermyn Street, its plain brown bricks and arched windows framed in pale Portland stone looking too ordinary to be such
haute ton
. The carriage door was opened. And there he was in stark black coat and trousers, a white cravat, moderate in height but perfectly tied. She hardly noticed. She had eyes only for the dear face, the blue eyes, the softly curling hair too long for fashion, tied back with a ribbon. His eyes went dark. She reached for his hand with her own gloved one. Events began to move quite slowly. Inside the porch of the church, he took her cloak, saying nothing. She could hear him breathing.

“Thank you for your kind gifts,” she murmured. “The pearls . . . You should not have—”

“They were little enough,” he said roughly. “I am repaid by seeing you in them.”

There was Miss Fairfield, shushing him away. “The groom should not be consorting with his bride before the ceremony, sir. What are you thinking?” She turned to Beth. “My dear Miss Rochewell, I . . . I hardly know what to say except that you are widely thought to be the luckiest woman in town. And . . . and that dress is quite lovely on you. No one deserves this more.”

Beth smiled. “You are probably the only one that thinks I deserve it, then, including myself. How much I thank you for your support today!”

The church proper was not as large as a cathedral, but the round arches of plain plaster and the windows set with clear glass still dwarfed the tiny party gathered near the altar. Major Ware, a man and a woman Beth did not know, and Mr. Rufford stood in front of a clergyman in his vestments who was thumbing through a Bible. All looked up as she walked into the dim candlelit glow.

Major Ware hurried forward. “Miss Rochewell, would you think it presumptuous if I asked to have the honor of giving you away?”

“Who will support Mr. Rufford, sir? I should not like to rob him of you.”

“His brother the Viscount has arrived with his Lady and is happy to fill that role.”

She nodded her grateful acceptance. Miss Fairfield hurried to her place, and Beth placed her arm on Major Ware’s sleeve. He was dressed in full regimentals, with several stars and ribbons holding medals in evidence.

The next minutes passed in a blur. Miss Fairfield and the man who was Mr. Rufford’s brother stood at their sides. The clergyman introduced himself as Reverend Jessop and smiled benevolently upon them as he spoke. Beth could not quite focus on the words, but she answered “yes” when called upon by name and “I do” when it seemed apropos. She wondered what the Reverend might think if he knew he was marrying her to a vampire. Mr. Rufford stood over her, saying that he did, and then she looked up at him, and his eyes were such deep pools of indigo she thought she might lose herself in them. He bent. Those wonderful lips brushed hers for the second time. They were so soft, so tender. A throbbing started somewhere between her legs. The Reverend Mr. Jessop pronounced them man and wife. Then Miss Fairfield was hugging her and Major Ware and Lord Stanbridge were pumping Mr. Rufford’s hands, congratulating him on having such a beautiful wife. No one ever meant such silly platitudes. She felt all in a whirl.

“Our carriages await us,” Mr. Rufford declared. He turned to Beth, almost shyly, and offered his arm. “Mrs. Rufford?”

The name came as a shock. She stared at him, but it was too late to protest that he must be talking about someone else. She had done this thing. She could hardly get her breath. Still, she placed her hand on his arm and felt the shock of his flesh under the fabric. He had never seemed so . . . physical. Not even when she had probed his bare flesh
with these very fingers? Tonight loomed ever larger. She was no simpering miss. She knew about maids and men. She had seen him naked even. He had seen her naked, too. She flushed. But not with . . . intent in either heart, surely. Tonight might be different—if he intended to be a husband to her at all. But he did not.
A marriage of convenience only
. That was all he wanted. But would it not be convenient and practical for a man to have a woman to hand in all senses? What did that mean about tonight?

The small wedding party had dinner in a private room at Rules Restaurant just off The Strand, featuring ducks, partridge, and venison, all taken from the owner’s estates in Scotland, as well as lobsters and endless side dishes in no fewer than five removes. Beth’s mind whirled while she picked at her food. A thought had occurred. If Ian did mean to be a husband to her in the bare essentials of that word, then she might run the risk of . . . She hardly dared think the word—offspring. Would a child bear the terrible consequences of her infatuation with a vampire? The room was warm. She was having trouble getting her breath. Should she beg the company’s pardon and excuse herself?

Before she could make the room stop pulsing long enough to decide, the tall, fair woman next to her began to speak. “I am so glad we could attend your wedding, dear . . . Mrs. Rufford.”