Lady Margery's Intrigues (17 page)

“Mayhap he was in his cups when he said those dreadful words,” suggested Amelia hopefully.

“I shall never forgive him. Never!” said Margery passionately. “Living with Desdemona would be a better fate. But what of you, Amelia?”

Amelia blushed painfully. “Mr. Jamieson proposed marriage to me,” she said in a whisper. “But I am too old for him. Perhaps now, if I told him that I had reconsidered, then I would be able to supply you with a home.”

“Do you love him?” asked Margery bluntly.

For a few minutes there was no sound but the moan of the wind in the fireplace and the hissing whisper of snow against the panes.

“Yes,” said Amelia softly. “But I am far too old. To tie a young man like that down—”

“Fiddle!” said Margery roundly. “Freddie is not nearly as stupid as he looks—sorry, Amelia—and had no doubt considered the matter carefully and has no doubt been ridiculed unmercifully by his so-good friends, Toby and Archie. But do not sacrifice yourself for me.”

“If he loved me and if he knew what he was doing, then it would be no sacrifice,” said Amelia slowly.

“Then forget about my agonies,” said Margery brusquely. “Let one of us be happy. Go to him. Go immediately, Amelia. Throw yourself on his neck and tell him you love him. Please, my dear friend and aunt. You have done so much for me. Do this one thing for yourself. I shall contrive. I always have.”

She smiled at her aunt's radiant face. Amelia looked very much younger than her years.

Trembling with fear and emotion, Amelia entered the private parlor and blinked at the light and at the three gentlemen seated there. Freddie, Perry, and the marquess rose to their feet and looked at her inquiringly. The marquess noticed with surprise that Amelia, with her eyes shining, her soft hair in a simple style under a demure lace cap, and her plump and shapely figure, still attired in a scarlet merino ball gown, was indeed a fine-looking woman.

“Servant, Lady Amelia,” said the marquess, giving her his best bow. “Can we be of assistance to you?”

But Amelia had eyes for no one but Freddie. Taking a deep breath, she said in a tremulous voice, “Mr. Jamieson. Earlier this evening you honored me with a proposal of marriage. I have decided to accept that proposal. Oh, F-Freddie, I am too old for you but I do love you so!”

Freddie had never been considered a man of action by his friends. But it seemed to take him two seconds to cross the parlor floor and clasp Amelia in his arms and kiss her passionately. The marquess felt a queer twist in his innards. Their love for each other was so powerful, it was practically tangible. The emotional Perry had happy tears in his eyes. “Let's leave them alone,” he whispered.

The marquess and Perry edged silently from the room, unnoticed by the happy couple. They paused outside the door. “Well, shall we descend to the tap?” asked Perry cheerfully.

The marquess slowly shook his head. “I am going to see my wife,” he said slowly. “I feel I have wasted too much time already.”

Lady Margery was turning over luxurious thoughts of vengeance in her mind. She would go to Desdemona and beg for a place. And Desdemona would humiliate her and treat her horribly, and
then
he would be sorry.

She would take a post as a governess and her employers would humiliate her and maybe beat her, and
then
he would be sorry.

But after a while her fantasies seemed as ridiculous as they in fact were. She must face the fact that her husband felt nothing for her. A tear rolled slowly down her cheek. There was a soft knock at the door and she brushed the tear angrily and went to answer it. Her husband stood on the threshold. She could not make out the expression on his face in the gloom, and shrank back.

He walked into the room and sat down in a low chair by the fire and stared into the flames. Margery slowly closed the door and came to stand over him, waiting for him to speak.

The marquess had been rehearsing many flowery and elegant speeches, but now he found that his throat was dry and that he was at a loss for words. Margery watched the firelight playing over his handsome face and elegant clothes as he sat back in the chair with one booted foot on the fender.

“The most damnable thing had happened,” he said suddenly in his light husky voice without looking at her. “I have fallen in love with you and I don't know what to do about it.

“I was startled by the abandon of your love-making and mistook what I now realize was innocent passion for the art of an experienced woman.”

Margery blinked in surprise.

“Perhaps you feel there is no hope for us. In that case I will release you and make provision for you so that you will not have to rely on Desdemona or your father.”

She inched towards him, half frightened that he was playing some terrible joke.

“I was not in love with you when I married you. I knew I had to find a wife to produce an heir at some point. You were of good birth and in need of security. It seemed a fair bargain. I did not plan on falling in love you with, Margery. Rage and jealousy and possessiveness have made me unkind. I said terrible things about you at Watier's. Toby is a fool and not to be blamed for his actions.

“If you think that you could tolerate me, I would be happy with only that. I shall not press any intimate attentions on you.”

There was a long silence while the marquess brooded sadly on the hopelessness of it all. With a start he realized Margery had whispered something.

“What!” he said, twisting round.

“I didn't fall in love with you when we were married,” said Margery softly. “I had been in love with you for—oh, such a long time before that.”

The marquess leaned back, limp with relief, in his chair and closed his eyes. With something like awe, she saw the glint of tears under his heavy lids and put her hand softly on his shoulder and bent her lips to his.

The marquess gave a groan and dragged her down onto his lap, kissing her and holding her and marveling at the miracle of recovering what he had so nearly lost.

“Come along,” snapped Desdemona. “It is not in the window. You must ask inside.”

It was a pale spring day with the first hint of warmth in the air. The earl thought longingly of Chelmswood as he had never done before. The daffodils would be out on the south lawn and the primroses in the hedgerows. He felt suddenly like a very elderly and very fallen angel, shut and barred from an English paradise.

With a little sigh, he entered the darkness of the shop, aware of his wife's predatory grasp on his arm.

Desdemona did not wait for him to speak. “That necklace,” she cried to the first assistant, “—the diamond-and-ruby one which you had displayed in your window. I want it.”

The assistant shook his head sadly. “You are too late, my lady. A gentleman bought it only the other day.”

“Which gentleman?” hissed Desdemona.

“It was the Marquess of Edgecombe, my lady. He bought it for his wife.”

“Fool!” screamed Desdemona, rounding on her husband. “This is what comes of your senile procrastination—you doddering
old man
.”

Something seemed to snap in the earl's brain.

“I'll buy you a present, madam,” he roared, happily oblivious of the staring eyes of the other customers. “You blood-sucking harpy. You can have a divorce as a present, that's what. You're nothing but a whited sepulcher—damme, if that ain't just it—a whited sepulcher, madam. All airs and graces on the outside, and inside, rotting with greed and spite and venom.”

The countess looked at him in amazement. “But Jimmy...”

“Stow it!” said the earl rudely. “I'm going to sell that barracks in Grosvenor Square and I'm going to take the money and ... and ... damme, I'm going to buy Margery a demned wedding present instead of that cheap vase you insisted on. Here, fellow, bring out some of your best gems. Only the best for my daughter.”

“I shall go back to mother,” threatened Desdemona, as the earl's shaking hands began to turn over gem after gem.

“Bad cess to you, girl,” said the earl, relishing his newfound armor of indifference. “Go find someone else.”

Desdemona half ran from the shop, her eyes blurred with angry tears. He would pay and pay dearly for those insults. But as she stormed along the street, she began to think that it would be very difficult to revenge herself on a husband who held the purse strings.

“Hey, what's that? Beauty in distress, eh!”

Desdemona blinked the angry tears from her eyes and found herself looking into the mottled face of Colonel Andrew Chapman, a gambling crony of her husband.

“Oh,
Andy
,” she burst out. “Jimmy is so horrid. He's going to
divorce
me!”

“Nonsense!” said the colonel. “Marriage spat, that's all.”

“It's not a spat,” wailed Desdemona, while her eyes neatly totaled up the cost of the colonel's expensive clothes to the last penny. “I—I shall run away with the first gentleman I meet—”

“Why! That's me!” exclaimed the colonel.

“The first gentleman who can take
care
of poor little Dessie properly,” said Desdemona, casting a look up at the colonel from under her long lashes.

The colonel looked down at the beautiful face and exquisite form and his heart began to hammer like a drum. “Gawd, harrumph, ma'am. Should think any gentleman would be proud to ... I declare, look at that fan in Asprey's. Cunning, ain't it? Little diamonds on the sticks, see. Just the sort of trifle a pretty gel like you should have, what!”

“Oh, I
couldn't
. I mean, I oughtn't,” said Desdemona, nonetheless taking a little step towards the shop. “What would Jimmy say?”

“Don't matter anymore what Jimmy says,” said the colonel, grandly offering his arm. “Just a little token of my esteem ... the first, I hope, of many little tokens.”

Desdemona gave him a blinding smile. “You have a
wonderful
way with words, my dear Colonel. A wonderful way with words...”

“There's Margery and Charles,” said Archie. “Pull over and we'll join ‘em.”

Toby looked over to where the marquess's curricle was parked under the trees. The marquess and Margery were leaning down to talk to Amelia and Freddie. Four radiant faces on a perfect spring day. Margery said something and the marquess laughed and turned to kiss her on the cheek.

“They don't need us,” said Toby sadly. “In fact, nobody does. We're just a pair of sour old bachelors.”

He wheeled his team round and headed for the park gates.

“It's all your fault,” said Archie. “You never listen to me. Didn't you see that pretty little Penelope Featherington at Almack's t'other Wednesday? The way she looked at you...”

“Miss Featherington is a very correct young lady,” said Toby stiffly.

“Pooh!” said Archie rudely. “They all look like that on the outside, but get ‘em between the sheets and they're all the same. Why, I could tell you a thing or two. I could—”

But whatever Archie could tell was destined never to be heard, by Toby at least.

Toby suddenly rammed his brother in the ribs with a beefy elbow and Archie somersaulted out of the curricle and landed heavily on the grass.

Toby whipped up his horses and bowled through the park gates at a smart pace. Quite suddenly, London looked like a jolly place again. He had not seen his old friends at the Four Horse Club for some time.

He would leave the petticoats alone and perhaps one day—just perhaps—he might land as lucky as Charles, Marquess of Edgecombe.