Hoping the church would not be locked, he crept around to the back door and gently turned the handle. To his relief, the door opened. He fumbled in the darkness of the vestry until he found a candle. For a while, he thought the flint on his tinderbox would never spark, but at last he succeeded in lighting the candle.
He unlocked the cupboard door and held the candle high. The vicar and his wife, blinking like owls, glared up at him.
“Oh, merciful God, you are still alive,” breathed Jasper. He took out his knife and cut the bonds that held their wrists.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, and then turned” and ran.
He mounted his pony and set out after the other players. Sovereigns paid to him by Bertram jingled happily in his pocket. He did not fear a chase by the law, for the marquess would not want to see his own cousin in court. But that marquess would certainly give young Bertram a hiding.
And, at that merry thought, Jasper began to sing, and was still singing happily when he caught up with the company.
Harriet was afloat on a sea of love. Naked as the first time the marquess had seen her, she lay wrapped in his arms. He had spent a long time kissing and caressing her, afraid of frightening her.
But passion was making them frantic. “Now, my wife,” whispered the marquess, and the broad shield of his chest rose before Harriet’s eyes.
“Stop!” screamed a voice from the doorway.
And then the room was full of people, lights, and noise.
Harriet screamed and dragged the blanket over her body as the marquess rolled to one side. She dragged them up to her chin, her enormous, frightened eyes peering over the top.
“What in hell’s name …?” roared the marquess. “Bradfield!” he exclaimed, recognizing the vicar. “What on earth are you about, to burst in on me?”
“You are not married!” cried the vicar. “You are in mortal sin.”
Aunt Rebecca appeared behind the vicar, and Mrs. Hudson behind her.
“But you married us yourself,” said the marquess. “No, my lord,” said the landlord. “Vicar says as how some actor ‘personated him, and young Mr. Hudson hit him and the missus on the head and stuffed them in the vestry cupboard.”
“No!” screamed Mrs. Hudson. “I must find my poor boy.”
“You
will find your poor boy?” raged the marquess. “
I
, madam, will find your poor boy, and when I do, I will put him in Bedlam.”
“The question is, my lord,” said the vicar, turning red. “Have you, er, um?”
“Have I consummated my nonmarriage? No, dammit, I have not. Clear the room while I dress. I will find that Bertram no matter where he is hiding.”
“He must wait,” said the vicar firmly. “You must be married right away. Ah, my dear,” he added as his wife, looking pale and flustered, appeared in the doorway with his robes, “you are just in time. Help me on with my robes. Landlord, you must stand in as bride man. Go to his lordship’s side of the bed. Miss Clifton, be so good as to give the landlord, Mr. Hoskins, your ring. And the elder Miss Clifton, be so good as to go to your niece’s side of the bed.”
Surprisingly calm, Aunt Rebecca did as she was bidden.
Harriet gazed at them all, wide-eyed.
“Are we really going to be married like
this?”
she asked the marquess.
“It seems we must, pet on with it. Reverend.”
The marquess arranged the blankets comfortably over his naked body and propped himself up on the pillow.
“Dearly beloved,” began the vicar, “we are gathered together….”
In a bewildered little voice, Harriet gave her responses.
The vicar and his wife were so embarrassed at having to officiate at the wedding of this naked couple that they departed as soon as the marquess and Harriet were made man and wife.
“Now,” said the marquess when they were alone again, “where was I?”
“What about Bertram?” asked Harriet.
“Damn Bertram. I’ll kill him tomorrow. Oh, Harriet, my life … my wife …”
Cordelia did not learn of Harriet’s wedding until two weeks after it took place. It was a discreet little notice, with no mention of fake vicars, erring cousins, or any scandal whatsoever.
She bit her lip. One humiliation after another. Agnes was to be married in two months’ time. Society would know very well that she, Cordelia, had not been invited to her sister’s wedding.
For a while, she felt miserable and ashamed. If only she had left things alone. She now realized that she had had all the respectability she craved when she and Harriet had been, on the face of it at least, friends. But after a while she hardened her heart and decided nothing was her fault. Hadn’t she tried to do her best for Harriet? Bertram Hudson would have made her a very suitable husband.
Cordelia decided to wed Lord Struthers. He was extremely rich, and he would not live very long.
She canceled her engagements for the evening and sent a footman with a note to Lord Struthers inviting him to supper.
She not only plied his lordship with a great deal of wine, but drank a great deal of it herself in order to face what lay ahead.
What took place in the silken sheets in Cordelia’s bedchamber is best left to the imagination, but Cordelia was finally able to feel much easier in her conscience. She had
worked
for her money. Lord Bentley had hardly been an Adonis, but this elderly Scots satyr was infinitely worse.
But she had played her part well. She could now get some well-earned sleep and gracefully accept his proposal in the morning.
To her irritation, the bed began to creak and groan as Lord Struthers heaved his bulk out of it. He put on his clothes with remarkable speed for such an old man.
“There is no need to rush off,” said Cordelia sleepily. “Where are you going?”
“Back tae ma ain bed,” said his lordship, stuffing his shirt into his breeches.
“But this is your bed now, my love,” cooed Cordelia, “or will be until we are wed.”
He finished dressing, seeming not to hear.
Then he walked toward the bed and threw a heavy bag of gold on the table next to Cordelia’s head.
“What’s this?” asked Cordelia, struggling up from under the blankets.
“I usually pay ma women,” said Lord Struthers with simple pride.
Cordelia could not believe what was happening to her. She tried to laugh.
“But we are to be married!”
“Merrit? Us?” Lord Struthers began to laugh. “Ma dear lassie, we dinna merry the likes o’ you.”
Cordelia seized the bag of gold and threw it at his head.
With surprising speed, Lord Struthers nipped out of the bedroom door and down the stairs.
Cordelia cried long and lustily before she at last crawled from bed and began to pick up the scattered guineas from the floor.
Harriet and her lord spent a long honeymoon in Naples, returning to London to find it in the grip of one of the coldest winters in memory.
“It is so good to be home.” The marquess sighed. Harriet looking around the gloom of St. James’s Square, remembered the sunshine of Naples, shuddered.
“Do you think, my love,” she ventured, “that I could have one room to decorate? A drawing room, perhaps?”
“What is wrong with this one?” asked the marquess, looking about.
“It is so dark,” said Harriet. “And all those paintings of slaughtered animals.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the marquess vaguely. “Do what you like with it. Do anything you like so long as you come upstairs with me and celebrate our return home.”
“Oh, Arden,” said Harriet dreamily. “I cannot believe you still love me.”
“Please call me John and break with tradition,” he begged. “Let the rest of the ton address one another in bed as if they are in their drawing rooms. I like to hear my name of your lips.”
“John.”
“That’s better. Oh, damn. Here comes Mrs. Hudson. We will not see her.”
“But I can hear her crying,” said Harriet. “Please. She sounds in great distress.”
“Very well.”
Mrs. Hudson presented a dismal sight. She was draped from head to foot in black.
“My poor Mrs. Hudson. Why are you in mourning?” cried Harriet. “Is Bertram …?”
“He must be.” Mrs. Hudson sobbed into a black-edged handkerchief. “Ever since your wedding, he has been missing. He must be dead. He would never abandon me like this. Oh. Arden, you
must
find him for me. You must!”
“Why should I make any effort to bring that jackanapes back into my life?” asked the marquess. “He is lucky I did not manage to find him, or you would have every reason to be in mourning.”
“Oh, hush,” said Harriet, her kind heart touched. “I am sure we will do all we can.”
But it took all of Harriet’s powers of persuasion to convince the marquess to attempt to find Bertram. “I shall come with you.” said Harriet. “We shall go back to that village where we were married.”
“If we tried before and could not find him. it is unlikely we will be successful after all this time.” grumbled the marquess.
At last, he gave Mrs. Hudson his promise to look for Bertram, and she left, still crying.
The marquess rang for his secretary and asked if there had been any letter from Bertram during their absence.
“No, my lord.” said the secretary. “I opened and read all the mail as you requested. There have been various complaints from her grace, your mother, wondering when she can get rid of Miss Clifton—I beg your pardon, my lady, I was merely using her grace’s very words.”
“I wish we had stayed away,” grumbled the marquess. “Send a carriage to my parents’ home to convey Miss Clifton here, and tell them I shall visit them shortly to arrange a formal wedding ceremony. A plague on all these people!”
It was a week before he and Harriet started their search for Bertram. The vicar, Mr. Bradfield, and his wife were delighted to see them.
“I cannot think too hardly of that actor even though he impersonated me,” said the vicar as his wife served tea. “He appeared most repentant.”
“I thought Bertram might have joined that company of players when I rode after them,” said the marquess. “But they all swore they had not seen hide nor hair of him or that Jasper fellow.”
“I wonder,” said the vicar. “Actors are like children. They often make very good liars because for that moment they
believe
the lie and they look at you with all the solemn innocence of children.
“I remember one autumn a group of players came to perform at the harvest festival. I saw them stealing apples from my orchard.
“When I accused them of it, they looked at me with hurt expressions and explained that my trees had a certain rare disease and they were trying to help me by applying a certain
tree medicine
to the bark. Amazing! I almost believed them.
“Now, your cousin was probably not of their company, but it is more than possible this Jasper was. They live on the fringes of the law and are expert at protecting one of their own.”
“Have they been here again?” asked the marquess.
“No. But I did hear they were over at Little Champton.”
“We shall try there,” said the marquess. “Mayhap we might find this Jasper and that will be a start.”
As they drove out in the direction of Little Champton, which was some ten miles away, the marquess told Harriet that it would perhaps be better to attend the performance. If they called beforehand, then Jasper would be warned of their presence.
The performance was called
The Feast of Blood
and promised “horrors extraordinary.” Ladies were advised to have not only their vinaigrettes handy but also a “strong gentleman” to bear them home when they fainted “from excess of emotion.”
The marquess studied the names on the playbill. There was no Jasper St. Clair listed. The main attraction appeared to be that “Drury Lane actor, beloved by the crown’d heads of Europe and Asia. Lord Peregrine Divine.”
“How these mountebanks do love to elevate themselves to the peerage,” murmured the marquess. “It is a wonder the authorities have not arrested him.”
The performance was held in an old barn outside the town. It was amazingly full and Harriet was surprised to see a number of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen in the front benches.
“Lord Peregrine Divine appears to have quite a following,” commented the marquess.
To make up for the paucity of the scenery, the play had a narrator. He was a slim young man, too tall and thin to be Jasper St. Clair.
In gloomy tones, he started to speak.
“The solemn tones of an old cathedral clock have announced midnight….” Someone banged a saucepan lid offstage twelve times, and the audience giggled. The narrator glared at them and went on. “The air is thick and heavy—a strange, deathlike stillness pervades all nature. Like the ominous calm that precedes some more than usually terrific outbreak of the elements, they seemed to have paused even in their ordinary fluctuations, to gather a terrific strength for the great effort. A faint peal of thunder now comes from ‘far off. Like a signal gun for the battle of the winds to begin, it appeared to wake them from their lethargy, and one awful, warring hurricane swept over a whole city, producing more devastation in the four or five minutes it lasted than would half a century of ordinary phenomena.”
The narrator then knocked over a kitchen chair to illustrate devastation and made a gloomy exit.
And then, all swinging cloak and flashing eyes. Lord Peregrine Divine strode onto the stage and the audience cheered themselves hoarse, while he glared at them with aristocratic contempt before speaking the ringing lines, “What ho, Slyvester, my trusted servant. Art in yon tavern? I need thy help, for my love, the Duchess of Pellegrino. lies buried in yon crumbling ruins.”
“Oh, dear,” said Harriet, round-eyed. For Lord Peregrine Divine was none other than Bertram Hudson.
They sat through the performance as Bertram strode about, ranting and raving and tossing back his hair, which had grown very long.
“What are we going to do?” asked Harriet as they left after the performance.
“Nothing,” said the marquess cheerfully. “We shall return to town and tell his doting mother that her chick is well.”
“But you cannot leave him here!”