The Six Month Marriage (5 page)

‘Because once
you are my wife you will be able to escape from your uncle. As a married woman,
he will have no more power over you,’ he said.

‘But you will.’
She jumped up and paced the room. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No. I
cannot do it.’

‘I would have
power over you as your husband, it is true. However, it would only be for a
short time. Once the marriage is annulled, no one will be able to have any
power over you ever again. If you agree to my proposal I will make you a
handsome settlement when the annulment takes place. You will have a home of
your own, and an annuity which will bring in enough money for you to live on
comfortably for the rest of your life. But you look close to exhaustion.’ He
stood up. ‘You don’t have to decide now,’ he said. ‘Why not think it over and
give me your answer in the morning?’

‘It’s no good,’
she said with a sigh. She shook her head. ‘Even if I could bring myself to
agree, my uncle would never give his consent. He has . . . other plans for me.’

‘Your uncle
has no control over my life. I would not ask his consent.’

‘But I am
under age.’ Her shoulders dropped. ‘My birthday may be only a week away, but it
may as well be five years away if my uncle finds me. And once he reads the
banns he will be sure to do so.’

‘Then we will
not publish any banns. We will marry by special licence. It has been done
before, and will be done again. Young ladies don’t always marry with their
guardians’ approval. You simply ran away before you knew you were to be
married, instead of afterwards.’

There was a
laughing glint in his eye as he said it, and Madeline realised that he was
teasing her. It had lightened the atmosphere and to her surprise Madeline felt
the corners of her mouth tugging themselves into a smile. She had had so little
to smile about of late that she had almost forgotten what it felt like.

Even so . . .

Even so, the
Earl was a man, and she knew from bitter experience that men were not to be
trusted.

‘I can’t,’ she
said, shaking her head. Once again she waited anxiously for an exclamation of
impatience, expecting him to be angry or jeering because she did not fall in
with his plans. But again, to her surprise, neither anger nor jeers came.

Somehow, she
found it unsettling. She had always know how her uncle would react, even if she
had been afraid of him, but with the Earl she was off-balance, never knowing
what to expect.

He put his
finger under her chin and tilted her face towards his. ‘You are tired,’ he
said. ‘You will find your bed has been made up. Go and get some rest.’

She looked up at him uncertainly.
Consideration and gentleness were not things she was used to, and for a moment
she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be the Earl’s wife.

But then she bid him goodnight. Because
there was also a hardness and a frisson of danger about the Earl, and she could
not marry him, no matter how desperate her situation – or how short-lived the
marriage would be.

Philip stood watching the door when Madeline
had left the room, lost in thought. Her reaction to his proposal had surprised
him. He found himself wondering why she thought of marriage in terms of power.
It was not a normal reaction, particularly in one so young, and despite himself
he was intrigued.

Just what had happened to her to make her so
distrustful, and so afraid of marriage – and of men? Was it just her uncle, or
was it something else?

He shook the thought away. It really was
none of his concern.

If she declined his proposal he could not
force her to marry him, but he found himself hoping, for her sake as well as
his own, that she would accept.

Once
back in her room, Madeline sat down in front of the inlaid dressing-table and
stared sightlessly into the looking-glass. She did not ring for a maid to help
her undress. She preferred, for the moment, to be by herself. Because the Earl’s
marriage proposal had stirred up painful memories, memories buried deep in the
past.

How old had she been when she had first realised how
dreadful her parents’ marriage had been? she wondered. She could not have been
more than five or six years old. She could still remember the occasion clearly.
It had been on a hot summer night when she had wandered down from the nursery,
unable to sleep. As she had approached her mother’s room she had heard the
sound of shouting and had stopped, afraid to go any further. She had put her
eye to the crack in the door and had seen her mother sitting on the bed,
weeping. Standing over her mother she had seen her father. He had been shouting
at her mother. Cruel words. Uncalled for.
Stupid
. . .
worthless
. . . the tirade had gone on. And then other memories. Memories of her father
belittling her mother before the servants and then laughing at her mother’s
distress; her father making jibes at her mother when the vicar called, leaving
the vicar embarrassed and her mother crushed and humiliated; her father
laughing at her mother for her thinness and paleness, making her thinner and
paler with every word he said. And her mother, when Madeline discovered her one
day weeping brokenly, saying to her in an impassioned voice, "Never trust
a man, Madeline. It only leads to despair. And never, ever marry. Marriage is a
terrible trap from which there is no escape."

Madeline recalled her thoughts to the present. With
trembling fingers she began to unpin her hair. Her father and her uncle, both
bullies . . . Her mother had been right to warn her against men.

And against marriage.

No matter how appealing the idea of having her own home
and an annuity was, she could not accept the Earl’s proposal. Because, curious
as a part of her was to know what it would be like to be the Earl’s wife, a
stronger and more frightened part recalled the cruelties her father had
inflicted on her mother, and her mother’s tearful despair.

She shivered and pushed away the memory of her mother’s
sufferings. But she did not push away her mother’s tragic warning. She could
not marry the Earl. But she was still grateful to him for having given her
somewhere safe to stay, and if she could only persuade him to give her a
reference so that she would be able to find a post as a companion or governess
and support herself, then she would have nothing more to wish for.

A
governess, she thought the next morning as she swung her legs over the edge of
the bed.

It was a bright and beautiful morning, and sunlight was
streaming through a crack in the curtains. What a difference between this room
and her dingy room in her uncle’s house! she thought. The pretty sprigged
drapes at the window glowed in the bright light, and the polished furniture
shone.

She went over to the window and lifted the curtain,
looking down into the neat and orderly garden.

Yes, a governess, she thought, dropping the curtain and
going over to the washstand, where the porcelain jug had already been filled.

If she became a companion then she would be condemned to
a life of servitude, but if she became a governess then in time she might be
able to save enough money to open her own small school and achieve a measure of
independence.

She washed and dressed, dispensing with a corset as she
could not manage the laces by herself, and then went downstairs.

Breakfast had been laid in the dining-room, and Madeline
helped herself to a plate of ham and eggs. She was surprised to find that she
had such a healthy appetite. In her uncle’s house it had been all she could do
to push a morsel of food past her lips, but here, with the burden of fear
lifted from her, she enjoyed her meal. She saw only one servant during all that
time: Crump, the butler, who brought her a cup of chocolate, and who told her
that the Earl had gone out on business but would be back before lunch.

Once Madeline had finished her breakfast she knew
exactly what she wanted to do. She had seen a large collection of novels in the
bedroom, displayed in a pretty break-fronted bookcase, and she longed to look
through it. She had noticed a number of books by famous authors, amongst them
Maria Edgeworth, Mrs Radcliffe and Jane Porter, and she was looking forward to
browsing through this unexpected treasure. Novels had been forbidden in her father’s
house, but her mother had occasionally managed to acquire one and she and
Madeline had read them together.

Running her fingers along the spines, Madeline smiled as
she came across
Evelina
, by Fanny Burney. It had been her mother’s
favourite book. They had both of them delighted in Evelina’s adventures as she
had moved from the country and discovered the joys of London life - until her
father had found the novel . . . She shuddered, and her finger moved on.
A
Sicilian Romance
,
Castle Rackrent
,
Octavia
– all the best
novels by the best authors were there. At last she selected Anna Maria Porter’s
The Hungarian Brothers
and, tempted by the summer sunshine, took it out
into the garden.

A riot of colour met her eyes. Emerald green lawns,
lovingly tended, were crossed by gravel paths which snaked through the
beautiful garden. Large flower beds were filled with gay blooms, in striking
contrast to the rank and overgrown patch of land behind her uncle’s house. The
roses in particular, just beginning to unfurl, made a lovely display. She
stopped to smell them, breathing in the heady scent; feeling as though, after
long months and years of merely existing, she was finally coming back to life.

Then, seeing a stone seat set at an angle to catch the
morning sun, she walked over to it and settled herself comfortably. The stone
was already warm and she stretched herself luxuriously before opening her book
and beginning to read.

‘Ah!
Pemberton! There you are. Good of you to come.’

Philip shook hands with the seasoned man who had stood
up to address him. They had met by design in a quiet corner of White’s, in St
James’s Street, Philip’s
London
club.

‘Your message sounded urgent,’ said Philip. ‘I thought
it best that we should meet straight away.’

Callaghan nodded, and the two men sat down in a couple
of deeply-buttoned leather armchairs. ‘Perhaps not urgent, but important. Oh,
yes. And something you will want to know.’ He opened an enamelled snuff box and
offered Philip a pinch. Philip refused and he shut the box with a snap. ‘I won’t
waste your time, Pemberton. I know you’re a busy man, so I’ll come straight to
the point. Saunders was a friend of yours, was he not?’

Philip’s attention sharpened at the sound of the
familiar name. ‘He was. And still is.’

Callaghan nodded thoughtfully. ‘Seen anything of him
lately?’

Philip sat back and surveyed the man in front of him. To
outward appearances Callaghan was an ordinary man. More weather-beaten than
most, perhaps, but nothing more. And yet Philip knew him to be a spy.

The war in
Europe
was dragging on. Although Napoleon had suffered a number of defeats
in recent years he had still not been stopped. He seemed determined to prolong
the war for as long as possible, knowing that if he sued for peace his own
power would be lost. The activity of spies, therefore - men who regularly
risked their lives to find out where he would strike next, or what his numbers
were - was vital if the war was to be brought to a speedy end. They lived in a
dark and shadowy world; a world of intrigue, deceit and double agents, of
sudden danger and silent death. And in this dark and shadowy world moved men
like Callaghan. And men like Jack Saunders; the man who, three years before,
had saved Philip’s life – a debt that, if the opportunity ever presented
itself, Philip meant to repay.

But for now he could do nothing to help Callaghan. ‘No.
Not since I left
Spain
. Why?
Has something happened to him?’

‘We’re not sure. We lost touch with him some weeks ago.’

Philip’s voice was emotionless: years of fighting on the
Continent had taught him that tragedy was inevitable in such a conflict. ‘Which
means that he is injured, captured or dead.’

Callaghan’s face remained bland. ‘Not necessarily.’

Philip’s gaze sharpened. Callaghan wasn’t some green boy
who clung on to hope for no good reason. He was an experienced campaigner. A
cautious, experienced campaigner. ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

Callaghan did not immediately reply. His face became
blander by the second. ‘It means that Saunders was engaged on . . . delicate
work. There may be reasons why he has not been in touch.’

Philip’s eyes narrowed. He knew Callaghan would not say
anything more definite, but that did not stop him from speculating as to what
the delicate work could be. Going undercover, perhaps? Infiltrating Napoleon’s
staff? – made easier by the fact that Napoleon was running desperately short of
men and needed all the help he could find. Or was the delicate work something
of a different kind? Was it a matter of trying to weed out the double agents
who played both sides off against each other, in the certainty of coming out on
top no matter which side won? Yes, that was possible.