The Harem Bride (15 page)

“
And your–ah–Ned will marry you if a
way can be found for him to make a living?”

The young housemaid left off wringing her
apron, her eyes taking on a glow of hope. “Oh, yes, my lady. In a
minute, he would.” She clasped her hands in front of her, as if in
prayer. “My lady, if you could help, I’d be grateful fer all of me
life.”

“
And what is your name?”

“
Blossom,
ma’am–Miss–m’lady.”

Penny had been handling crises for so many
years that it was only now that the oddity of the situation struck
her. “Blossom,” she inquired carefully, “may I ask why you seem to
think I might be able to help?”

“
But you’re the mistress, m’lady.
Everyone says so. And you’re in the mistress’s rooms, now ain’t
you? And that Mrs. Coleraine, she threw one of them fancy China
vases against the wall o’ her room yesterday. Smashed to
smithereens, it was. Kept screamin’, ‘
Married!’
, she did. Tossed the basin and pitcher
too, m’lady. Took two ’o us an hour just to brush up all the
pieces. And she put a silver candlestick through a window too. His
lordship wasn’t half pleased, I can tell you.”

“
Mrs. Coleraine?” Penny echoed
faintly.

“
Mrs. Daphne Coleraine, his
lordship’s—” Once again, Blossom clapped her sooty hands over her
mouth. “Y’r fire’s workin’ fine now, m’lady. I’d best be off. And
thanks ever so fer askin’ about me problem.” Poor Blossom was out
the door before Penny could form a question from the disastrous
thoughts suddenly flitting through her head.

Mrs. Daphne Coleraine. But of course Jason
would have a Daphne Coleraine in his life. Perhaps two or three at
once, if all that she had heard were correct. Honesty forced her to
admit he had sent the woman away. None too kindly, from the sound
of it. At the moment Penny was more inclined to sympathize with the
unknown Mrs. Coleraine than with her errant husband.

She was about to be tied to an insensitive
rake.

She had been tied to an insensitive rake for
nine and a half years. The only difference now was . . .

Her second wedding night would not leave her
a virgin.

As it turned out, she was, once again,
mistaken.

~ * ~

The breakfast room was a surprisingly
cheerful spot, with a roaring fire in a red brick fireplace
embellished with an intricately carved oak surround. Through two
floor-to-ceiling windows, sun could be seen sparkling off the snow
outside. And delicious odors wafted from beneath the round silver
covers set upon the sideboard, mixing with the pungent smell of
coffee.

Relief flooded through Penny as she realized
she had the room to herself. She had never cared to chat before
breaking her fast, and on this particular morning—her second
wedding day—she could well do without the presence of her erstwhile
husband, the Earl of Rocksley, or his companion, Lord Brawley, who
seemed to see the world as one vast source of cynical amusement.
Penny allowed Hutton to bring her two shirred eggs, bacon, kippers,
and toast. She took a sip of coffee, sat straighter in her chair,
and decided that perhaps she would, after all, survive this gray
echo of her dramatic, and exotic, first wedding in the Topkapi
palace.

It was, she supposed, thoughtful of Jason to
arrange a renewal of vows, though her personal sentiments on the
two occasions contrasted as greatly as the opulence of the Sultan’s
court to winter in Shropshire. She had been so excited, so
thrilled, to become Jason’s wife. Jason. Savior. Hero. The love of
her life.

And then he’d abandoned her. Sailed off and
left—

Untrue.
Jason
may have preferred the company of his friends to hers, but it was
she and Aunt Cass who had sailed off to the Americas, leaving her
young husband behind.

Penny chased away a lump in her throat with a
goodly swallow of coffee. They were each at fault, she supposed.
Aunt Cass, who wanted to protect her . . . and who perhaps enjoyed
her niece’s company a shade too selfishly. Jason, who could not be
blamed for wanted to indulge in a few more years of freedom. And
she herself, who could have broken away any time after she reached
her majority. Who could have contacted Jason, even if Aunt Cass’s
illness kept her immured at Pemberton Priory.

Pride.
The
ancients had the right of it. Pride was indeed a bitter pill to
swallow.

And now? Now she would make the best of a bed
made long ago. After all, there could be little doubt about the
choice between earning her daily bread as a governess or companion
and being the Countess of Rocksley. Unloved though she might
be.

Yet, even with sun sparkling off the snow,
the day was gray.

It did not matter. Close on ten years ago,
she had wandered into a nightmare in Constantinople’s Grand Bazaar,
and ruined Jason Lisbourne’s life. She owed him a proper wife, no
matter if her schoolgirl adoration had long since turned to dust.
She owed him her life, and she would pay the price.

Penny blinked, focused on her food, and
discovered she had eaten almost nothing. Grimly, she forked a bit
of egg, now cold and congealed. She chewed and swallowed. For her
second wedding day she needed all the strength she could
muster.

As Penny was finishing her meal, Mrs. Wilton
entered the room. Not so much as a wisp of hair escaped her severe
dark coil of hair. Her white cap was starched to perfection, her
keys dangling over black bombazine so stiff the gown looked as if
it might well stand on its own. Her lips, however, hinted at a
tremble and her tone, when she spoke, was quite altered from the
previous night. “I beg your pardon, my lady,” she said, standing
stiffly erect, “but did you wish to look over the menus for
today?”

Penny regarded Mrs. Wilton with curious eyes.
“May I ask why you think I might wish to do that, Mrs. Wilton?” she
inquired.

“
I–ah–as his lordship’s wife, it is
your right, m’lady,” Henrietta Wilton managed, telltale white
knuckles showing on the hands that were clasped in front of her.
“I’m that sorry, my lady, I did not know who you were when you
arrived. I fear I did not . . . that is, when his lordship said you
were to have the countess’s suite, I never dreamed— Ah, my lady, if
you’ll forgive my impertinence . . .”

“
It is scarcely your fault, Mrs.
Wilton, if the earl did not tell you,” Penny assured the stricken
housekeeper, “but I admit I am curious about why you are now so
certain the earl and I are married.”

Henrietta Wilton turned pale, then under
Penny’s continued stare, flushed to an alarming shade of strawberry
puce. “Hutton heard his lordship say so, my lady, and then, of
course, we realized the earl would never put anyone but his wife in
the countess’s rooms.”

“
And were all the earl’s guests privy
to this information as well?” Penny asked softly.

Mrs. Wilton struggled visibly between the
flat truth, the necessity of being loyal to her master, and the
certain knowledge that from this time forth her life would be
governed by the lady sitting in front of her. “I believe, my lady,
some of the guests left before the facts became generally known.
Those who left later in the day, however, could not fail to have
been aware . . .”

“
Yes, Mrs. Wilton?”

The housekeeper pressed her lips together,
disapproval radiating from every pore. “There was talk, my lady,
some of it rather loud. In the end, there is not a soul in the
household who has not heard of his lordship’s marriage.”

Rather loud
.
Mrs. Daphne Coleraine screaming, “Married!” and tossing things
about. A China vase? Idly, Penny wondered if it had been Ming. Poor
Jason. As much as his negligence hurt her, she could never forget
the sacrifice he had made. If he had not married her under such
strange circumstances, would he have become a rake? Or would he
have made a conformable marriage to a proper young lady and be the
father of a hopeful family by now?

Penny looked up to find the housekeeper still
standing stiffly in front of the door that led to the kitchen
regions. “By all means, let us begin as we mean to go on, Mrs.
Wilton. Is there a room where we may confer in comfort?”

The morning parlor at the rear of Rockbourne
Crest was as warm and cozy as the breakfast room. And more
colorful, as its furnishings were a cheerful blend of bright yellow
and gold, accented with cherry. It was, in short, an inviting
parlor any lady would welcome as the ideal place to speak with her
housekeeper, write letters, or indulge in the latest novel. Penny’s
decidedly mixed emotions about Rockbourne Crest tilted more
strongly toward the favorable.

When she had approved the menus, including a
rather sumptuous evening meal Mrs. Wilton termed a wedding feast—a
gesture Penny found oddly touching—the Countess of Rocksley
realized the moment had arrived when she must try out the story she
and Jason had concocted the night before. The housekeeper was a
good woman, and efficient, a proper, respectable messenger for what
the Earl of Rocksley and his countess wished the world to know.

Penny smiled as she returned the neatly
written menus to Mrs. Wilton across a pedestal table placed only a
few feet away from the steady glow of the fireplace. “Mrs. Wilton,”
she began, “I am sure you must be curious . . .”

Several hours later in the earl’s study,
Penny joined her husband in recounting the same remarkable tale to
the vicar. Mr. Adrian Stanmore was young, as the Reverend Philip
Hunt had been young. And Mr. Stanmore was almost uncomfortably
handsome. Somehow Penny had hoped for the comfort of a fatherly
vicar, even a grandfatherly one, but at least Mr. Stanmore did not
appear as dour as Mr. Hunt. Nor did he indicate one whit of
disapproval as the earl explained the awkwardness of their
situation.

“
I was doing the Grand Tour with some
friends,” the Earl of Rocksley said. “And, to my surprise, whom
should I meet in Constantinople but a connection of my family, Miss
Cassandra Pemberton, and her niece, Miss Penelope Blayne. Several
weeks were spent by our various parties enjoying the sights, and
then Miss Pemberton fell ill.” Jason leaned forward, confidingly.
“I am certain, Mr. Stanmore, you have heard of the many diseases
prevalent in the East, most particularly of Lord Elgin’s
unfortunate disfigurement.”

“
Indeed, my lord,” said Adrian
Stanmore, his handsome face wreathed in genuine concern, “a
tragedy. As was his divorce and the current contretemps over the
marbles.”

So, the earl thought, the young whelp had two
thoughts to rub together, an improvement over certain vicars he had
known. He had appointed Stanmore to the living, as he recalled,
because a friend had asked it as a favor. Perhaps the boy had more
possibilities than he had expected.

“
Miss Pemberton,” the earl continued,
“was thought to be on her deathbed. She and Miss Blayne, who was
little more than a child, were thousands of miles from home. Miss
Pemberton begged me, as a representative of the family, to look
after Miss Blayne. When the doctor told us Miss Pemberton would not
live through the night, I acquiesced to her pleading that I wed her
niece so that all would be proper for me to escort her back to
England. I was one and twenty, Mr. Stanmore; Penelope, a scant
sixteen.” The earl’s voice dropped to nearly sepulcher
tones.

“
But then my aunt made a miraculous
recovery,” Penny contributed. “Aunt Cass and I eventually sailed
off to the Americas, while Jason—Lord Lyndon then—returned to
England. My aunt and I continued to travel until we were forced out
of Lisbon in the great evacuation just before Marshal Junot’s
invasion.”

“
Unfortunately,” the earl continued,
“Miss Pemberton had formed an–ah–rather poor opinion of my
character by that time and discouraged both my wife and myself from
revealing our marriage.”

“
And then my aunt fell ill . . .
again,” Penny said, “a lingering deterioration of nearly three
years.”

“
I wrote to Miss Pemberton,” the earl
said, “attempting to reconcile the situation with my wife, but when
Miss Pemberton informed me she was truly dying this time, if by
inches rather than from a virulent fever, I could not, of course,
take Penelope from her side.”

“
Most proper, I’m sure,” Mr. Stanmore
nodded, though Penny could see that the vicar’s intelligent eyes
harbored a few doubts about the earl’s laggardness as a
lover.

The Earl of Rocksley removed a worn and
much-folded document from his inner jacket pocket. “Here are our
marriage lines, Mr. Stanmore, signed by the Reverend Philip Hunt
with Lord Elgin as one of the witnesses.”

“
But since so many years have passed,”
Penny said, “and because the marriage was in such a distant land,
we would be pleased if you would allow us to renew our
vows.”

The young vicar’s slightly puzzled frown
dissolved into a pleased smile. “Splendid. The very thing,” he
declared.

“
Today,” declared the earl. “Now, in
fact, for we do not wish to give the appearance that we are living
under the same roof without being husband and wife.” Jason raised
one inquiring brow. “I trust you brought the necessary items with
you?”

“
Yes, my lord, though when I read your
letter, I was not expecting to perform the service for such an
illustrious couple. May I say I am honored, truly
honored—”

“
Yes, yes, shall we get on with it?”
Jason interrupted, rising to his feet. When the butler answered his
tug on the bellpull, the earl ordered, “Assemble the servants in
the drawing room, Hutton. Tell them to step lively. We are about to
have a wedding.”