Slightly Married (12 page)

“Ah, but this particular invitation includes you by name.” Wulf lifted a heavy embossed card off the top of a pile of letters in his lap and glanced at it. “‘The pleasure etcetera, etcetera.' Ah, here. Colonel Lord Aidan Bedwyn. Someone with Prinny's ear must know you are home on leave.”

“I'll make some excuse,” Aidan said hastily.

Bewcastle was looking down at the card again. He held his quizzing glass in his hand to enlarge the writing—a pure affectation, Aidan was sure. He doubted there was anything wrong with his brother's always keen eyesight.

“Someone else is named here too,” he said before looking up to meet Aidan's eyes. “Lady Aidan Bedwyn.”

General Naughton!
During that chance meeting in the lobby at the Pulteney, Aidan had introduced his bride to the general. It could be no one else. By happy chance he had seen no other acquaintance that day until, right at the end of it, he had run into General Naughton.

“Peculiar!” he said with studied nonchalance.

“I was amused when I first read it, I must confess,” Bewcastle said. He was silent for a few moments while the word
first
hung in the air between them and Aidan pursed his lips. “
Is
there a Lady Aidan Bedwyn?” The question was softly asked.

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Bewcastle set the card down on the pile and regarded his brother steadily from his silver, wolfish eyes. “Might I inquire when I was to be informed?”

“You were not to be.”

Bewcastle knew as well as Aidan did the unsettling effect of long silences. But Aidan did not squirm under his scrutiny during the one that followed. Bedamned to him. It was none of his business.

“Now that your secret is out,” Wulf said at last, “perhaps you will satisfy my curiosity, Aidan?”

“I made a promise to one of my dying captains,” Aidan explained, “to bring the news of his death in person to his sister and to give her my protection. The only way of doing the latter, as it turned out, was to marry her.”

“Your marriage is of recent date, then?”

“Two weeks,” Aidan said.

“By special license.”

“Yes.”

“Who?” Bewcastle asked.

“She was Miss Eve Morris,” Aidan said, “owner of Ringwood Manor in Oxfordshire. She is the daughter of a wealthy coal miner.”

“A coal miner.”

“Yes, from South Wales. He married the owner's daughter and made his fortune that way.”

“Deceased?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other for several silent moments.

“And you have now abandoned her?” Bewcastle asked. “Forever?”

“Forever, yes,” Aidan admitted. “But it is not abandonment. She has a life at Ringwood she wished to preserve and dependents she wished to protect. Only by marrying in haste could she do either. Ours was a mutually agreed upon marriage of convenience. I make no apology for it, Wulf, or for keeping it from you. It was something none of my family needed to know about.”

His brother gazed at him for long moments while Aidan realized that the coffee in his cup had turned cold.

“It will not do,” Bewcastle said at last. “Appalling as it may be, this
Welsh coal miner's daughter
is now a Bedwyn. My sister-in-law. And her existence is known of in the Prince of Wales's intimate circle. It must be publicly acknowledged by her husband's family.”

“No.” Aidan spoke firmly. “It will not be, Wulf.”

The ducal eyebrows rose. “Lady Aidan Bedwyn must be presented,” he said. “It is safe to assume, I suppose, that she never has been? She must make a formal appearance at a queen's drawing room. Our Aunt Rochester will sponsor her. There must be a ball in her honor at Bedwyn House. The marriage has had a havey-cavey start, for which you will doubtless come up with an explanation to satisfy the gossiping tongues of the
ton
. But now all must proceed correctly. Your bride must be brought up to town and up to snuff, Aidan, difficult as the latter may prove to be.”

“It is not going to happen,” Aidan said. “Do you think I care the snap of my fingers what gossiping tongues wag about in London drawing rooms? They have to talk about something. Let them talk, then, about how I married beneath me and shamed my family and then cruelly abandoned my bourgeois wife—or perhaps even lower than bourgeois. Some new sensation will soon supersede this sorry one. Some heiress will run off with a handsome footman or some young chit will utter a naughty word in the hearing of a dowager, and drawing rooms will buzz with the new scandal.”

“There will be no unsavory gossip about a Bedwyn,” Bewcastle said. “Even one by marriage. This coal miner's daughter is now married to the heir to a dukedom. There must be no perception that she has been abandoned or hidden away, perhaps because we are ashamed of her vulgar origins. Bedwyns on average marry later in life than most people, but we do not abandon our spouses once we
do
marry, Aidan, or expose them to possible ridicule or pity.”

“You will not budge me on this, Wulf,” Aidan told him. “For one thing, my wife has exactly what she wanted of the marriage—independence and the freedom to live her life her way. For another, she has absolutely no connection with the world of the
ton
and therefore cannot be hurt by its gossip—she will not even know of it, if there is any, which I seriously doubt. Thirdly, my marriage is
my
business and I choose to leave my wife in peaceful obscurity in the country, where she belongs and where she wishes to be. I will come to London with you if I must and attend this infernal dinner and any of the other celebrations at which my presence is de rigueur. If anyone is impertinent enough to inquire about my marriage, I will answer in any way that seems appropriate to the occasion and the audience.”

“You would dishonor both your bride and your family, then?” the duke asked softly. “You
are
ashamed of her, Aidan?”

Aidan swore viciously, causing his brother's eyebrows to arch upward in disdain.

“Lady Aidan has been invited to Carlton House,” Bewcastle said. “It would be an unpardonable discourtesy, Aidan, to appear there without her—or not to appear at all. Your rank in the cavalry is such that you cannot fail to appear since it is known you are home on leave. Your wife must appear at your side. It will be something of a rush and a challenge for our aunt to bring her up to scratch, I do not doubt, but all things are possible to those who are determined to make them happen.”

Aidan set his cup and saucer down and got to his feet. Even when they were both standing he was taller than his brother. He was also broader and heavier. It was to his credit, perhaps, that Bewcastle remained seated and put himself at a further physical disadvantage.

“My wife,” Aidan said in his chilliest tones, “will not be appearing at any queen's drawing room or at any presentation ball or at any Carlton House dinner. She will not even be going to London. It is my wish and, if necessary, my command. Even you, Wulf, cannot step between a man and his wife. This is the end of our conversation.”

Most men would at least have
looked
apprehensive at the cold menace in Aidan's face and voice. Bewcastle, of course, was not most men. He raised his quizzing glass to his eye and regarded Aidan thoughtfully through it.

“Quite so,” he said in his soft, pleasant voice. “Close the door behind you when you leave.”

And that was the end of that, Aidan thought as he made his way upstairs—he had promised to accompany Morgan on an outdoor sketching lesson, the condition under which Miss Cowper had agreed not to go herself.

“She
hovers,
” Morgan had complained to her brother. “She
breathes
on me. And she comments on
every
brushstroke, explaining what
she
would do if
she
were the one painting the picture. And then she apologizes for disturbing my concentration. But will she allow me to go out alone and paint in peace? No, she will not. She is afraid, no doubt, that I will bolt away from my easel and swim naked in the lake in full view of the gardeners or some other such shocking thing and Wulf will see me and have her chained to a damp, slimy wall in the dungeon as punishment. I would swear, Aidan, that she has never even noticed that there
are
no dungeons at Lindsey Hall.”

Aidan was considerably shaken. The cat was out of the proverbial bag. He wondered how soon it would be before his other brothers and sisters found out. He wondered if he should take the offensive and tell them himself. He was not, as he had just assured Wulf, ashamed of what he had done—or of his wife. The very idea! But he did not want her bothered. He had promised her a marriage of convenience. He had taken himself out of her life and intended to keep out.

The news had severely rattled Bewcastle, though, he concluded when he returned to the house with Morgan early in the afternoon, having swum in the lake himself while she painted. The traveling carriage with its ducal crests emblazoned on both doors stood outside the carriage house looking as clean and shining as the day it had been purchased. There were no horses attached to it, but there were liveried footmen bustling about, looking as if they were making ready for a journey.

“Wulf must be going somewhere,” Morgan said. “But he does not use that carriage for local visits.”

“He has plans to return to London,” Aidan told her. But so abruptly? He took a firmer grip on Morgan's awkwardly sized easel and lengthened his stride.

“Where is Bewcastle going, Fleming?” he asked the butler as they stepped into the hall.

“I am not in his grace's confidence, my lord,” the butler said with a deferential inclination of the head.

“Then who the devil is?” Aidan asked. But Bewcastle himself wandered into the hall at that moment, dressed for travel. “Where are you off to, Wulf?”

His brother regarded him haughtily. “To London,” he said. “I have already neglected my duties there by staying home for so long. You will follow tomorrow, Aidan, with Alleyne and Freyja. It is all arranged.”

Yes, it would be. And he would go too, Aidan supposed. Being the son of a duke brought along with it inescapable duties once one was in England. And so ended his dream of a peaceful month and more of relaxation at Lindsey Hall.

“Do my eyes deceive me, Fleming?” Bewcastle asked pleasantly. “Or is my carriage really not awaiting me before the doors?”

C
HAPTER X

P
ERHAPS YOU WILL GET INVITED THIS YEAR,
” Aunt Mari was saying hopefully, “now that you are out of mourning for your dada, my love, and now that you are Lady Aidan Bedwyn instead of just plain Miss Morris.”

“I have no wish to go,” Eve said. “Though I would if you were included in the invitation.”

“You know,” her aunt said reproachfully, “that it is not for myself that I want the invitation. I am already living in heaven. But it is time you were recognized for what you are—a perfect lady even if your dada and your old aunt
did
once earn an honest living down a coal mine. I thought maybe the prospect of a garden party might lift you out of the mopes.”

They were riding home in the gig, having just paid an afternoon call upon Serena Robson. There had been other visitors there too, and conversation had turned upon the annual garden party at Didcote Park. Though the Earl and Countess of Luff regularly invited most people with any pretense to gentility in order to make up sufficient numbers, they had always pointedly excluded the Morrises. Serena had expressed the same hope as Aunt Mari, to the extent of declaring that she would not go herself this year if Eve was not invited.

“I am not in the mopes,” Eve said, smiling determinedly. “Would you have me laughing all day long, Aunt Mari, merely to prove to you that I do not feel abandoned or slighted?”

She felt neither. She had made a bargain with Colonel Bedwyn, from which they had both benefited. She had kept Ringwood and—far more important—her children, while he had fulfilled his solemn promise to Percy. They were both now free to pursue their lives as they saw fit. What was so depressing about that?

But of course she
was
deeply depressed. Despite all that she had gained, despite all the rich blessings of home and family, she was filled with an emptiness so vast that it frightened her. There had been no word of or from John. And of course, there had been no word of the colonel either. Strangely, that latter fact contributed as much to her mood as the former. The realization that she would never hear anything more of the man who was her husband—except, perhaps, one day the news of his death—clutched at her with an inexplicable panic.

She was distracted from such gloomy thoughts by the sight of Thelma and the children topping the rise from the dell as the carriage drew level with the lily pond. With them, Benjamin astride his shoulders, Becky holding one of his hands, was the Reverend Thomas Puddle. Eve raised a hand to wave to them.

“Ah,” Aunt Mari said knowingly, having noticed too.

The vicar had danced twice with Thelma at the wedding assembly. He had come a number of times during the past week and a half to call upon Eve and inquire after Mrs. Pritchard's health. Each time he had asked if it would be convenient for him to watch some of the children's lessons. It did not take an oversized brain to detect a budding romance between him and Thelma. It delighted Eve that he seemed not to hold her undeserved reputation as a fallen woman against her. A gentle soul himself, he attracted children without having to make any special effort to win their confidence.

“There perhaps is one happily ever after in the making,” she said.

She was surprised a moment later that the first distraction to draw her attention on her approach home had not been the carriage standing before the doors of the house. It was not one she recognized. Indeed, it was far grander than any carriage she had seen before, including the Earl of Luff's. There was a coat of arms emblazoned on the door. She did not recognize it, but then she did not know a great deal about heraldry.

“We have a visitor,” she said, nodding in the direction of the house. “I wonder who it can possibly be.” She wondered, with a churning of her stomach, if it was John.

Agnes was awaiting them in the hall. She was beyond her usual sour self. She was fairly bristling with indignation.

“Who is it, Agnes?” Eve asked, her voice lowered since she could see that the parlor door stood open.

“I would of put him in there,” Agnes said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the parlor, “but it wasn't good enough for his high and mightiness, was it? ‘I will wait in the drawing room,' he said, all la-di-da, and made off for the stairs even before I could go and show the way. I don't know what the world is coming to, I don't, when people can invite themselves into other people's houses and act like they own them.”

“Who?” Eve asked, frowning.

“Some duke,” Agnes said.

For a moment Eve was afraid her knees were about to buckle under her.
Some duke?

“Oh, Eve, my love,” Aunt Mari said. “Can it be the colonel's brother, do you suppose? Is the colonel with him, Agnes?”

Eve turned without waiting for Agnes's reply and hurried up the stairs. What other duke could possibly be coming to visit her? But why? She flung open the drawing room doors and stepped inside.

He was standing across the room by the windows, facing the doors. He was immaculately and tastefully clad in a dark green superfine tailed coat and buff pantaloons and waistcoat with white linen and highly polished Hessian boots, a dark, forbidding-looking gentleman who bore such a resemblance to Colonel Bedwyn that Eve's heart turned over. She closed the door behind her back and gazed wide-eyed at him.

“Why have you come?” she asked him, her voice all thin and trembling. “What has happened to him? Has he met with some accident?” That mud—all that
mud
.

He inclined his head with slight courtesy, his long fingers toying with the handle of a quizzing glass. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Aidan,” he said. “I am Bewcastle.” He spoke in a light, soft voice, not effeminate exactly—in fact, it was
definitely
not that—but one that lacked the depth and force one expected of a gentleman's utterance. Nevertheless, it sent shivers crawling up Eve's spine and somehow belied the words he had spoken.

Belatedly, she curtsied.

There were differences between the brothers, she noticed. The Duke of Bewcastle was more slender and not quite as tall, and his lean face with its prominent nose and thin lips looked cold and arrogant and cynical rather than harsh and grim. His eyes too were paler, a lighter gray than Eve's own. Almost silver, in fact.

“You will be pleased to know,” the duke said, “that I left my brother in good health at Lindsey Hall yesterday, all his limbs intact.”

“I am pleased to hear it,” she said.
There was a duke standing in her drawing room.
Why had he come?

“You will be wondering why I have come here,” the duke said, “since it is not to inform you that you are a widow. I came to make the acquaintance of my sister-in-law.”

Eve swallowed awkwardly. She was still dressed for the outdoors, complete with bonnet and gloves.

“You are welcome here, your grace,” she said.
Was that the correct form of address for a duke?

“I very much doubt that,” he said coldly, raising his glass halfway to his eye and looking incredibly haughty. “But perhaps you can persuade that fierce housekeeper of yours to fetch a tea tray and we can discuss your future role as Lady Aidan Bedwyn over refreshments.”

Her future role?
“Yes, of course,” she said, crossing to the bell rope and pulling on it. “Do have a seat, your grace.”

They sat in unnerving silence until Agnes came. Eve handed her her gloves and bonnet and ordered a tea tray. Where was Aunt Mari? And what must her hair look like? His eyes really were silver. They appeared to have the ability to look right through her.

“My future role?” she said when the door closed behind Agnes and she could stand the silence no longer.

“I wonder, ma'am,” Bewcastle said, “if you understand whom exactly you have married. I have not yet performed my duty to posterity. I have no wife, no child. Aidan is my heir presumptive. Only my fragile life stands between him and a dukedom—and between you and a duchess's title.”

She could feel color flood her cheeks. “You think I married Colonel Bedwyn for that reason?” she asked. “You think me ambitious and conniving? How perfectly ridiculous!”

“Oh, quite so!” He still had his quizzing glass in his hand. For one moment Eve thought he was going to raise it all the way to his eye.

“Marrying into an aristocratic family brings with it certain responsibilities and expectations,” the duke continued. “Marrying the heir brings even more. The wife of Lord Aidan Bedwyn, possibly a future Duchess of Bewcastle, must be introduced to society if it has not already happened. She must be presented to the queen. She must learn to move with ease in her husband's world.”

Eve's eyes widened. “But I have no intention of moving in Colonel Bedwyn's world,” she said. “He must surely have told you the nature of our marriage. It was agreed that we separate immediately after the nuptials and stay apart for the rest of our lives. I am sorry if you do not approve, but—”

“You are quite correct,” the duke said in his deceptively quiet, courteous voice. “I do not approve, ma'am—and that is a marvelous understatement. I do not approve of my brother's choice of bride or of the clandestine haste of his marriage or of the nature of it. I can do little about the first two facts since you are and always will be the daughter of a Welsh coal miner and you are and always will be married to my brother. I
can
do something about the third fact. The nature of your marriage must change.”

“There is a proverb, your grace,” Eve said, clasping her hands very tightly in her lap in the hope of hanging onto her temper, “that sleeping dogs are best left lying. There is no need to come here with threats. I have no intention whatsoever of shaming you by displaying my soot-blackened fingernails in public or murdering the ears of your acquaintance with my Welsh accent. I have no intention of traveling any farther than ten miles from Ringwood all of the rest of my life. You may safely forget about my existence. I will bid you a good afternoon.” She got to her feet.

The duke looked bored. “Do spare me the theatrics, ma'am,” he said, “and sit down. And do credit me with some degree of common sense. I would not have traveled all the way from Hampshire merely to instruct you to do what you are already doing. You misunderstand my purpose. Tomorrow you will travel to London with me.”

Her eyes widened in shock as she sat again, but before she could say anything Agnes came back into the room with the tea tray, which she set down none too gently on a table at Eve's elbow. She gave the duke the evil eye and looked as if she were itching for an excuse to toss him down the stairs and out through the front doors without first opening them. He was looking bored again, as if he were unaware of the housekeeper's very existence. Agnes sniffed and left the room, banging the door behind her. Eve poured the tea with hands that were not quite steady.

“Aidan is not only the heir to a dukedom,” the Duke of Bewcastle said as he took his cup and saucer from her hands. “He is also a high-ranking military officer, ma'am. In both capacities his presence in London is essential. There is to be a summer of victory celebrations in the nation's capital. Already there is one specific invitation to a state dinner at Carlton House with the Prince Regent and numerous other heads of state, an invitation that includes Aidan and . . . you, Lady Aidan Bedwyn. Your existence is already known of in the inner circles of the very highest society, you see, ma'am.”

“
I
have been invited to
Carlton House
?” She laughed, thinking of Cinderella and glass slippers and pumpkins. “Then you may decline on my behalf, your grace. I might, you will understand, arrive there in a crumpled cotton dress with rags in my hair and proceed to tell vulgar stories and dance on the table after I have imbibed a few drinks.” Her voice shook ignominiously.

He raised his glass three-quarters of the way to his eye. “Your scorn is misplaced, ma'am,” he said, his voice very soft and sounding downright dangerous. “If you neglect to put in an appearance, you will embarrass my family. It will be whispered that there must be something wrong with you—or with us—if we have hidden you away in the country a mere few weeks after your secret nuptials. I cannot expect you, perhaps, to have great regard for most members of my family, of whose number you are now one, I must remind you, but I would expect even a coal miner's daughter to have some respect for the man who sacrificed his freedom for her.”

She drew breath sharply. “Is
that
what he told you?” she asked.

“Is it untrue then?” He waited politely for her answer and then continued. “Use your sense, ma'am. My guess is that you possess your fair share. Aidan is thirty years old. If one uses the Bible as one's hourglass, he has approximately forty years of his three score and ten left, married to a woman he has pledged never to see again. Now clearly there is some sacrifice of freedom there.”

She drew breath to answer and then discovered that there was nothing to say. How could she argue with the truth—except that she would further curb his freedom by appearing in his life again unbidden.