Authors: Nikki Poppen
The sight that greeted Alasdair in the kitchen caused
him to pause in the doorway and stare in amazement.
Marianne stood at the long worktable, hands immersed
in a deep pile of dough, flour dusting her hair and
streaking her face. If it had been anyone else, Alasdair
would have thought the scene ridiculous in the extreme. But it was Marianne, and the sight of her baking bread when there were countless other servants
who could do the task seemed perfectly natural. He
would expect nothing less from his future countess.
In spite of his worry over the current situation, a
smile spread across his face at the unorthodox idea of
finding Marianne in his kitchens, baking bread, surrounded at some point by their children perched on
high stools learning to do the same. Reluctantly, he pushed aside the coveted image of that family. That
would be in the future. Right now he had to take care
of the present.
Marianne pummeled the round of dough in front of
her. The stern concentration etched on her face suggested he’d been right in his initial assumption. Brantley had sent her a letter as well.
Alasdair pushed off the door frame and made his
presence known with a little cough. “What are you doing, Marianne?” he asked in friendly tones although
he knew perfectly well what she was doing.
Marianne looked up, startled at the intrusion. “I’m
making bread” Alasdair heard the wariness in her
tone. “It’s what I do when I have a problem to solve or
something that bothers me”
Alasdair pulled up a tall wooden stool and sat at the
counter. “Lord Brantley has sent me a note and I am
guessing that he sent one to you too.”
Marianne bit her bottom lip. “Yes. Mine came in the
post this morning.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t
have let myself be so happy last week. Everything was
wonderful and now this will ruin it all.”
“How could it possibly ruin everything?”
She paused from her bread punching and fixed him
with a strong gaze. “I won’t let you pay him, Alasdair.
Paying his fee only validates for him that he possesses
information that has value.”
Alasdair nodded. “I had no intentions, nor I hope
do you, of paying for his silence.”
“He will tell everyone what happened in New York,”
Marianne said quietly, absently massaging a bit of
dough that had become separated from the pile.
“Probably,” Alasdair agreed. “Is it all that bad if he
does? We’ll still be married as we planned. We’ll still
turn Highborough into the home I want it to be. There
is very little he could say that would alter our plans,
Marianne. I am not sure he understands that or he
would know what an outlandish gamble he’s taking.
He would know the odds are against him in terms of
succeeding with his course of action.”
Marianne smiled at his encouraging words. He, too,
felt bolstered by them. It was true, he realized. He had
no intention of letting this measly piece of blackmail
alter what he’d waited to find his whole life. The world
became a simpler place when one could cut out the extraneous concern about what others would think and
focus on one’s own priorities. The only reason he cared
about Brantley’s threat was that he didn’t want to see
Marianne hurt.
Alasdair reached for a clump of dough and took off
his coat. He began rolling up the sleeves of his very
white shirt. “Does this really work for relieving stress?”
“It works for me” Marianne studied him with acute
disbelief. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to try it. I have to admit I’ve never
kneaded bread before, but until last week, I’d never
made a bed either.” Alasdair kept his tone purposely
light. “While I’m learning, perhaps you can tell me what happened in New York that would have Brantley
believing he could blackmail you”
Marianne sobered. “There will be a scandal, Alasdair, if word gets out. Your mother won’t like it.”
Alasdair gave a harsh laugh. His mother had been
poleaxed by the official announcement of his engagement before the party had left Highborough. She’d
been so thoroughly upset by the notion that she’d refused to accompany the group to Cowes. “Then the
scandal won’t change anything,” he said nonchalantly.
He’d come to terms with his disappointing relationship with his mother years ago, and although he was
always optimistic that relationship could be changed
if she desired it, he wasn’t always hopeful. His choosing Marianne for a wife was only one of many things
they had disagreed on over the years.
“Tell me your story, Marianne, and let me be the
judge of it.” Alasdair gave his dough an experimental
punch. “I’m ready for it.”
“New York was exciting. There was so much to see,
and people were friendly. My mother’s family is from
New England and they had some connections. I had a
sponsor in New York. It helped immensely. I’d been
told in advance that New Yorkers looked down their
noses at new money, especially at fortunes that came
out of the West. San Francisco and Denver are cities
that are too raw for their tastes. But since I had a
sponsor, no one cared overmuch about my `question able’ antecedents” Marianne reached across the worktable. “Try it like this,” she suggested, guiding Alasdair’s hands in a more-regular motion.
“Within a week I had a group of young friends
with whom I went everywhere. We attended the same
functions. Their families invited my mother and me
to sit in their opera boxes, to come to their country
houses for a winter weekend on the Hudson … One
of my new friends was a girl named Rachel. Another
young man in our set, Christopher Archer, had also
become a close friend of mine. He made certain to
dance with me at parties and I thought the three of us
formed a very nice trio.”
“Let me guess,” Alasdair broke in. “Rachel didn’t
think so”
“Exactly. I didn’t know that there was an understanding of sorts between Christopher and Rachel. Apparently, this understanding had been arranged between
their families for ages” Marianne huffed. “We don’t do
things that way in San Francisco. For one thing, the
city’s not old enough to have families that can trace
their roots back for a century.”
The parallel to the situation with Sarah could not
have been more obvious. Alasdair nodded his head. He
saw now why she’d been so concerned, early in their
relationship, about the rumor regarding his unofficial
status with Sarah Stewart. She’d recently come out of
a similar situation. It made her reluctance to pursue a
courtship with him perfectly understandable, and ad mirable even, seeing that she would put the concerns
of another ahead of her own happiness.
“Rachel told me about Champagne Sundays and
arranged for me to attend one of them”
“Wait, what’s a Champagne Sunday?” Alasdair
queried.
“Well, Sundays are the most boring days of the
week in New York. Proper homes don’t receive on
Sundays and no events are held. But other ladies, who
live on the fringes of social acceptance, discovered this
was a vacuum that they could fill with social events of
their own. So, on Sundays, these ladies would invite
men of their acquaintance to their homes. They would
serve champagne. Sometimes there’d be an oyster dinner or a visiting opera singer who performed. There
would oftentimes be singing and dancing.”
Alasdair nodded. He grasped the concept, something a bit akin to the demimonde of London but on a
smaller scale.
“I didn’t fully understand the implications of attending a Champagne Sunday. At the time, it seemed like a
fun lark, a harmless dare. The activities weren’t exactly
of a debauched nature-only the company was. I suddenly learned in New York that it didn’t matter so
much what you did but who you did it with. I could eat
oysters at Delmonico’s without repercussion, but as
soon as I ate oysters in the company of questionable
companions on a Sunday, there were consequences”
Alasdair followed the story to its logical conclusion. “New York ousted you for it, all because you danced
too many times with the wrong young man.”
“Precisely.” Marianne shook her head. “Only it will
look so much worse when Lord Brantley tells the
story”
Alasdair could see that too. Brantley would emphasize that she’d been in the company of men and their
mistresses, while champagne had flowed freely. He
would imply that all nature of licentiousness took place.
He pounded at his dough, not so much out of the
original frustration he’d felt when he’d first read Brantley’s missive, but out of the need to think. After a while,
he stopped pounding, pleased to see that a neatly
shaped round circle had been formed from his efforts.
“I think you’re right, Marianne,” he said slowly, thinking out loud as an idea took shape. “Brantley feels that
he can maximize the story, exaggerate certain parts of
it. But if the story can be maximized, perhaps it can also
be minimized if we play our cards right.”
“How should we go about doing that?” Marianne
asked, the wheels of her own mind beginning to spin,
the process visible on her face.
Alasdair gave her a wicked grin. “We have to tell
the story first. His mistake all along has been assuming we don’t want the story to get out. Brantley can’t
claim blackmail if there is no secret to hide.”
Marianne dressed carefully for dinner that night.
All of them were joining the Prince of Wales on his yacht for an intimate dinner, a very rare invitation.
The setting suited them perfectly. They’d all agreed to
“announce” Marianne’s New York situation at the
supper. After a quick meeting that afternoon, the five
friends had convinced Marianne that the prince would
be most sympathetic to her plight and eager to champion her side of the story.
Still, she was nervous. Alasdair had reassured her
the strategy was perfect and that his feelings for her
were not in the least bit altered by this revelation.
Marianne took a final look in the long mirror. Tonight
she wanted to exude an aura of confidence and she
hoped the cream satin gown with its bold rose print
would help to accomplish that.
A knock sounded at her door and she gathered up
her matching evening wrap and reticule, expecting to
find her mother waiting on the other side of the door.
But when she opened it, it was to find Alasdair there.
“The others are downstairs and I thought I would
fetch you myself. You look stunning.” He smiled his
appreciation.
“Thank you. I could say the same about you,” Marianne replied, taking in the handsome man standing in
front of her in evening dress. She never tired of looking at Alasdair. She’d not really paid attention to a
man’s physique until she’d met him, to the strength inspired by broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow
waist, the grace of his long legs. But it was no wonder she’d not noticed the magic of man’s body before. So
many men were simply not worth the notice that no
one had stood out the way he stood out to her.
Alasdair gently took her wrap from her hands and
draped it about her shoulders. “What’s that in your
hair?”
“Do you like it? It’s a strand of coral and pearls I had
strung to go with this gown in Paris. The coral is supposed to match the roses in the pattern” Marianne
raised a hand to touch the jeweled chain woven through
her coiffure.
“It’s gorgeous. The coral twinkles so subtly in your
hair, it makes a man look twice to make sure he’s not
imagining things.” He paused, his eyes starting to spark
with the familiar glint of mischief she’d come to associate with him. “I came up here for another reason too,
you know.”
“What was that?” Marianne played along, tilting
her head coquettishly.
“I wanted to steal a kiss.”
“I am afraid that will be quite impossible,” she said
in a tone that caused him a moment’s consternation.
“Why is that?”
She tapped him on the nose. “Because you can’t
steal something that is freely given. You’ve been doing far too much of the kissing lately. Tonight, it’s my
turn” With that, Marianne stretched up on her tiptoes
and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.
“What did I do to deserve that most wonderful
gift?” Alasdair asked a little later as they descended the
stairs.
She shot him a sideways glance. “You believe in
me. You love me for what I am and for what I am not”
The night weather at Cowes provided an ideal accompaniment to the dinner cruise. Stars winked overhead and the water was calm beneath them, allowing a
table to be set up on the open deck. There had been the
requisite tour of the prince’s yacht, and dinner conversation had naturally focused on the upcoming regatta.
Prince Albert’s nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II, had brought
his yacht, Meteor, to race for the cup and for the bragging right to be called the King of Cowes.
“He once accused me of sailing with my tailor,” the
prince said good-naturedly toward the end of the meal.
“My boat was out of commission that year, and I was so
determined to race that I joined my tailor on his boat.
Camberly here has crewed with me before” The prince
gestured to the earl who nodded. “I am hoping to persuade you to join me again, Camberly. What do you
say?”
“I would be delighted.”
“And you, Pennington?” the prince challenged jokingly. “Where will your loyalties lie this year? With
your father-in-law-to-be and his new yacht, or with
me, your stalwart, longtime friend?”
“That is a difficult decision indeed. I shall have to ponder it,” Alasdair replied easily. Marianne blushed as
he caught her eye over the table. Perhaps she’d been too
bold with her kiss on the stairs but she’d wanted to kiss
him, wanted him to know how she felt, how she understood everything he was endeavoring to do for her.
He should know from the start that she would not
be like so many of the wives she’d seen during her
time in England, who said nothing, who never spoke
of their feelings but merely accepted decisions that
were made for them. She would never be that kind of
wife.
“Ah, very good” The prince laughed. “It’s a smart
man who knows how to weigh the influence of his inlaws.”