The Harem Bride (14 page)

“
And then I would tell myself he could
not talk to me, show any preference, for if his friends knew the
whole, I would be ruined. And that fairy tale kept me quite propped
up for years, as you recall, until Aunt Cass pointed out how
gloriously my so-called husband was enjoying himself without
me.”

“
Aye,” Noreen interjected with a spark
in her eye, “she went so far as to tell you she assumed an
annulment had been arranged.”

“
Yes . . . and I was young enough, and
ignorant enough, to believe her,” Penny sighed. “I did, in fact,
believe it right up until today when Jason—Lord Rocksley—told me we
were still man and wife.”

Noreen O’Donnell placed her hands on her
sturdy hips and regarded her charge with stern eye. “And have you
thought about what changed your aunt’s mind, child? About why, in
her final days, she did her best to throw you into his lordship’s
arms?”

“
Oh, yes,” Penny said. “I’ve had plenty
of time to think about that since the will was read. It was the
talks we had while she was ill, when, for the very first time, we
discussed what actually happened in Constantinople. When she was
willing to listen to how truly noble Jason was. How he spared my
virginity . . . in spite of great provocation.”

“
Aye, that was it,” the Irishwoman
agreed. “It was a blow, Miss, indeed it was. To learn how wrongly
she had judged him. I could see how sorely she took it. Within a
week she’d sent for Mr. Farley.”

“
And never said a word to me,” Penny
whispered. “Not a word of warning about what she
planned.”

“
She was ill, Miss, her head not as
wise as it should have been. But she did try to make things
right.”

“
How can it ever be right?” Penny
asked, her voice little above a whisper. “It’s too late, Noreen.
Far too late.”

A soft scratching at the door proved to be
Hutton with word that all the guests, except for Mr. Deveny, had
departed, and his lordship would be pleased if her ladyship would
join him for dinner at seven.

“
Ask him if the guard is to be taken
from our door,” Penny called to Noreen, who was standing
face-to-face with the butler.

A jerk of Hutton’s head and the poor footman
who had spent the day outside the door of the Countess of Rocksley
was seen to lope off down the corridor as fast as his long legs
could carry him.

Penny, still speaking only to Noreen
O’Donnell, said: “You may inform that sorry excuse for a butler
that the
countess
is so
overcome by his lordship’s generosity in allowing her out of her
prison that she is even willing to dine with him.”

After the door was firmly closed in Hutton’s
face, Noreen turned on her mistress. “Ah, child, it’s a fool you
are if you toss this opportunity away. He was a stout lad who
didn’t shirk his duty, and he’s grown into a fine man, for all his
rakish ways. Lord Lyndon offered his life for you once. Don’t let
the sad mistakes made since that terrible time keep you from seeing
what’s right under your nose.”

Penny hung her head, feeling once again the
thirteen years she was when she first met Noreen O’Donnell. Was she
childish—or at the best, mistaken—to think her hurt greater than
Jason’s? Was she a hopeless romantic to wish it were possible to
re-capture those moments of joy when she had truly thought he cared
for her?

She was a few months short of six and twenty.
Long past the age to put away childish things.

With great dignity, Penny raised her head and
said, “I have not been a child for a very long time, O’Donnell. I
survived the seraglio, I survived abandonment by my husband. I will
do what I must to survive this very strange reunion. Though . . .
in truth, I am not at all certain what that will be. Come,” she
added briskly, “let us see if there is a gown suitable for the
Countess of Rocksley to wear while dining with a lord of the
realm.”

The Earl of Rocksley sampled a slice of
roast beef, his thoughts wandering from the conversation Gant
Deveny was attempting to have with Penelope Blayne. Penelope
Lisbourne
, Countess of
Rocksley.
His
countess. He
was getting old, Jason decided. He must be, or he would not be
reveling in the quiet serenity of a table set for three. With his
wife on his right, his most trusted friend to his left, what more
could a man want? Only a day earlier he had thought he was enjoying
himself to the tune of shrieks of laughter, raucous guffaws, and
vulgar behavior from those who had spent days sampling his wine
cellar and each other. In the twinkling of an eye that reality now
seemed as distant as those long-ago days in the Levant.

More so. For here was little Penny, his wife,
all grown up . . . and looking as if she faced the hangman on the
morrow instead of the vicar.

But of course she did not know about the
vicar, so it must be the awkwardness of their situation that made
her look so dour. As if she were Hannah More, by God, passing
judgment on his household. Miss Prim and Proper, portrayed by a
female who once crawled into his bed wearing nothing but two
transparent pieces of silk, while he was arrayed only in the skin
the Good Lord had given him.

Unfortunately, very little of his lordship’s
sense of misuse had dissipated by the time he was finally closeted
alone with his wife in the small intimate study adjacent to
Rockbourne Crest’s impressive bookroom. The gentlemen had not
lingered over port, and Gant Deveny had been quick to heed his
friend’s scowl, taking himself off to the billiard room with
alacrity, almost as if he were a gleeful conspirator in giving the
earl and his countess ample time to spar with each other.

The earl stood, hands behind his back, while
his wife took her time arranging the skirt of her lavender gown
over the buff leather of the bergère chair. When she had composed
herself, folding her hands in her lap like some innocent
child—which annoyed him still further—Jason announced, “I fear
matters have not proceeded as I had planned.” Ah, that caused a
flicker in those cold blue eyes. “I had thought we might be
married, as if we were bound by a long-standing betrothal, without
reference to our–ah–past association. Unfortunately, my incautious
words in the hall last night—”

“
Incautious?” Penny huffed. “You were
foxed!”

“
Regrettably.” Jason spun round, poured
out a dollop of brandy. Then, after staring at the snifter for some
time, he left it lying atop the marquetry cabinet. “Even then,” he
said as he paced back to his wife, “I thought we might carry it
off, but one of my–ah–guests came upon Mr. Deveny and myself while
we were discussing the matter. I fear she is not a woman noted for
her discretion. There has been considerable talk, below stairs as
well as above. I have sent for the vicar. To avoid further
questions about where we married or how it came about, he will
renew the ceremony here tomorrow. Hopefully, that will put an end
to any rampant speculations. My guests have gone, undoubtedly to
spread news of my marriage throughout the
ton
. But at least I control my own servants.
They will be content to witness our marriage and attest the matter
is properly settled. And they will not dare ask about the
past.”

“
Others will,” declared his wife,
unhelpfully.

Jason eyed her sharply. “You are saying we
must be in agreement about what we tell of our past.”

“
If
we go
through with this,” Penny said. “Although I concede you have a
legal right to decide my fate, my lord, I do not grant you the
moral right to do so. Earlier today, you asked me to consider
making our marriage a reality. Now, without a moment’s discussion,
you are telling me we are to be wed tomorrow. Surely, you cannot
expect me to approve this abrupt manipulation.”

Jason strode back to the marquetry cabinet,
downed the brandy in one swallow. He stood with his back to her,
looking toward the crackling fire, avoiding his wife’s penetrating
gaze. “I should have emulated the sultans and dropped you overboard
on that long trip through the Mediterranean,” he pronounced, still
gazing at the flames licking upward from the glowing red logs.
“But, no, I was King Arthur, Lancelot, and all the Knights of the
Round Table rolled into one. I had rescued the fair maiden, and she
was mine. I had only to wait for her to grow up.”

So it was true, Penny thought. It was not
only she who thought him a hero. He had been as starry eyed as
herself. Of course, she reminded herself sternly, it had not been
personal. It was the romance of it all that had tickled his boyish
fancy.

“
I have been full grown a long time,
Jason.”

Wearily, as if well aware of his guilt, the
earl walked back across the room and finally sat in the matching
chair opposite Penny. “You were the child, Penelope; Cassandra
Pemberton and I, the adults. Therefore, the fault is ours. I
acknowledge it. I was young and foolish, and all too easily put
off. I cannot blame you for being hurt and angry. But what I am
making such a mull of saying is that matters have gone even more
awry since we spoke earlier today. We must renew our vows and make
a marriage of it—”

“
Or we must apply to the court for a
formal separation,” Penny interjected.

The earl, his cobalt eyes gone to winter ice,
leaned in close. “Penelope, you cannot possibly wish to live alone
for the rest of your life. I knew a girl in the seraglio one night,
and I am absolutely certain that girl was never destined to live
her life without love.”

“
Love? You dare to speak to me of love
when I wasted so many years adoring you, waiting for
you—”

“
Enough!” the earl roared. “I’ll not
have a woman like you wither away on the vine. Look at you! You’re
already nothing but a shadow of that glorious child. Is she gone,
Penelope? Have I lost her? If so, then it must be a divorce, for I
wish to have a real wife, children—all that posterity implies. A
separation will not do at all. Is that what you want then? Divorce?
To be ruined forever, while I make a wholly new life for myself?
For that is the way of the world. No matter who is at fault, the
wife is ruined, shunned, forever damned in the eyes of the
ton
.” Abruptly, the earl
straightened, leaned back in his chair, regarding her with
piercing, patently angry, eyes. “Well, tell me, my dear countess,
which is it to be?”

She hated, absolutely hated to allow
him his triumph, but she had discovered the meaning of
ruined
nine and a half years earlier
when she had strayed away from Aunt Cass and her bodyguards in the
Grand Bazaar. She had spent the intervening years striving to
become a pattern card of the proper young English gentlewoman. A
life of ostracism, as was guaranteed by the dread decree of
divorce, was not to be borne. She would not, however, give him the
satisfaction of actually voicing her capitulation.

“
I believe,” said the Countess of
Rocksley to her husband, outwardly perfectly composed, “you spoke
of creating a past upon which we could agree.”

Only by the slightest curl of his lips
did Jason indicate the surge of satisfaction that swept through him
at his wife’s oblique reply. His
sangfroid
was not, alas, as much to spare his
wife’s feelings as his own. After all, he too had his
pride.

On the morrow—Penelope’s second wedding
day—she woke to the sound of sniffles interspersed with outright
sobs. It took her several moments to identify these most unusual
noises, and another moment or two to discover the source, a young
housemaid who was in the process of stoking up the fire.

Penny, after shoving the heavy velvet bed
hangings further aside, stared in consternation at the sobbing
maid. “Whatever is the matter?” she asked.

Eyes wide, the young maid clapped a hand over
her mouth, stifling a wail of surprise. She was, in fact, so
startled, she teetered on her heels, then sat down hard upon the
wooden floorboards.

“
Well?” Penny persisted, as the
housemaid sat before the fire, mob cap askew, her black skirt
tumbled up to reveal the white petticoat beneath and the tall black
stockings on the thin legs stretched out in front of
her.

“
Oo-o, Miss—m’lady,” the girl gasped,
“I never meant to wake ye. Mrs. Wilton be ’aving my head, she
will.”

Since the little housemaid, who couldn’t be a
day over fifteen, now had a streak of charcoal across half her
face, Penny’s lips twitched before she once again asked the girl to
tell her what was wrong. It took a bit more persuasion, but in the
end the chambermaid’s tale came tumbling out.

After wiping her tears with her apron, the
girl sobbed, “I be in the family way, m’lady, and Mrs. Wilton, she
says I has to go, and my pa won’t have me back, and it’s the
workhouse for sure—”

“
Merciful heavens, how old are you?”
Penny asked.

“
Sixteen, m’lady. Sixteen on
All-Saint’s Day, I was. I’m fully growed.”

Sixteen. And looked a babe. No wonder Jason
had once thought her a child.

“
And your young man? Will he not help
you?” Penny asked.

“
Oh, m’lady, poor as a churchmouse, he
is. And his pa’ll skin ’im alive if’n he finds out.”

Oh, dear. “Is he gentry?” Penny inquired
carefully.

“
Ah, no, ma’am, a farmer he is, but his
pa wants him to marry sumthin’ better’n me. Says he’ll cut my Ned
off without a penny if’n he marries me.”