The Kidnapped Bride (10 page)

“Does he get paid now?” Sir Nicholas asked innocently. “Must be a welcome change for him, since you’d never a feather to fly with before. But don’t mind me. Dasher will be along soon enough with my gear. He’ll look after me.”

“Dasher! You still keep that clodpole?”

“Dear me,” Sir Nicholas sighed, “I’d no notion you were so niffy-naffy in your ways. Dasher suits mine well enough, I assure you. Is there wine in this establishment? My throat could stand a wetting, if it’s not too much to ask.”

“Bring it into the library, Beck.” Darcy sounded almost sullen as he stood aside to let his uncle precede him into that room. Sarah waited only until Beck had disappeared through the green baize door before hastening in search of Penny.

To her dismay, she found her companion laid down upon her bed with a sick headache. Penny’s face was drawn and pale, and Sarah exclaimed aloud at the sight of her. “Penny! What on earth have you done to yourself?”

“’Tis only one of my stupid migraines, my dear. I shall be right as a trivet by tomorrow, I daresay, if only I have a care for myself now. But don’t get into a tizzy over it. You know these things pass quickly.”

Sarah did know. Miss Penistone was rarely ever sick, but she had had such headaches several times in the past, and Sarah knew the only cure was complete bedrest until the thing had disappeared entirely. Clearly, no one had informed Penny of Sir Nicholas’s arrival, and Sarah quickly decided that she must not do so now. Penny would insist upon getting up to help her dress for dinner at the very least, and that would be most unwise for her in her present condition. Therefore, she made soothing noises, promised to send one of the maids in later to be sure everything was all right, then tucked her in and wished her good night. “For you must be absolutely quiet, Penny, so that you will be your old self tomorrow. You have been working entirely too hard. We simply must have more help, so you won’t feel obligated to do so much yourself. However, we shall say no more about it now. Just you go to sleep. Can I get you anything at all? A tisane, perhaps?” But Penny declined the offer and closed her eyes gratefully. Drawing the curtains to shut out the glare of the rapidly sinking sun, Sarah left her to her rest.

Sorry though she was for dear Penny, she readily admitted that the indisposition could not have come at a more inopportune time. Sarah wanted to look her best for dinner, and she simply could not manage the details by herself. On the thought, she set out in search of the most obliging of the three housemaids, finding her at last in one of the second-floor bedchambers.

“Betsy, quickly!” she urged. “Find out from Matty or Tom which of the bedrooms belongs to Sir Nicholas, and set one of the other girls to preparing it for him. Oh, and warn them both that they are to say nothing of his arrival to Miss Penistone. She must have her rest. Then I shall want a bath. And hurry! I’ll need you to help me dress for dinner.”

The girl bobbed a curtsy and fled, and Sarah returned to her own room to examine her wardrobe. Rejecting a lovely gown of virginal white silk embroidered with silver bugle beads at the bodice and another of cream-colored satinette embellished with a rose-pink sash, she chose instead a gown of which her aunt had disapproved strongly. Sarah had ordered it anyway and had had to submit to a blistering scold as a result, but she was glad now that she had held out. At least this gown would not make her look like a maid fresh from the schoolroom. She held it up and regarded her mirrored self with approval.

It was a simple affair of gold satin with a high waist, short puffed sleeves, and a slim skirt with a gathered demitrain. The neckline, scooping dangerously low both back and front, was trimmed with delicate Brussels lace, but there was no further decoration. Instinctively, Sarah knew that Sir Nicholas would like this elegant confection. She did not spare a thought for her husband’s potential reaction.

Betsy returned with the news that Tom and one of the stableboys would soon be bringing hot water.

“Betsy, do you think you can do my hair?”

“I can try, my lady,” the girl said doubtfully, “but I’ve not much know-how when it comes to London ways.”

With a sinking feeling, Sarah looked at her. “Surely, you could contrive something!” She could not wear the golden dress with her hair all tumbled down her back. It would defeat the whole purpose. “Maybe I can help.”

“Maybe. But ’tis an awful lot of hair, ma’am, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

“Well, I cannot cut it off,” Sarah stated firmly. “And we’ve nothing to crimp it with even if I did. We shall simply have to contrive.” But an hour later as she sat in her wrapper before her mirror, glowing warmly from her bath, she shook her head in frustration. Betsy had brushed her hair till the tresses shone like spun gold, but now she seemed to be at a loss.

“What does your woman do next, my lady?”

Sarah grimaced, trying to remember. Lizzie never seemed to do anything special. Her fingers just twisted here and tucked there until the thing was done. Penny was not nearly so clever about it, but the outcome of her labor was always neat and becoming. “I don’t know, Betsy,” she confessed forlornly. “I’m afraid I never paid much attention to the how of it—only the results.”

“Well, I wears mine down me back or pushed into me cap, ma’am. Don’t know much else ’cept plaitin’, and I doubt you wants that.”

“No … that is …” Sarah stared at her reflection as a glimmer of an idea came to her. She closed her eyes tightly, struggling to remember. When she opened them again, they sparkled. “Betsy, do you think you could make two plaits, braiding very tightly and pulled up as you go?”

Betsy nodded slowly, the expression on her face indicating that she thought it a rather odd notion. She began to part Sarah’s hair down the middle.

“’Tis a style I saw in
La Belle Assemblée
last month,” Sarah explained. “They call it
à la Didon
, and it looks like a crown when it’s done. The two plaits are wound so—” She indicated with her hand, drawing a halo around the top of her head. “—and they had it decked out with diamond pins and feathers and such, but I daresay it would look well enough plain. Do you think you could manage that?”

Betsy thought for a moment and then pronounced that she could, like as not. She was as good as her word, and the third attempt proved satisfactory. There were, as indeed there always seemed to be, various fine wisps of hair that refused to be confined. They curled instead around Sarah’s ears and the nape of her neck, but she decided that these enhanced the style and left them alone. Slipping off the wrapper, she let Betsy help her into the silken chemise that went with the gown and then into the gown itself.

“’Tis a lovely thing, my lady,” Betsy breathed solemnly as she did up the tiny, satin-covered buttons in the back. “Makes you look like you was made of gold, it does.”

Chuckling, Sarah thanked her, fastened a short strand of milky pearls around her throat, and slipped her feet into golden sandals. With a frowning look into the glass, she decided something was missing and, taking up a lacy shawl of Albany gauze, draped it so that it was caught up casually at her elbows. Satisfied that she looked the part of the elegant young bride, she dismissed Betsy and carefully seated herself to await her summons. It seemed only moments later that the young maid reappeared to inform her that she was wanted below.

As she descended the stairs, Sarah wondered how Sir Nicholas would behave. Normally, he had an abrupt way of ordering one about or of disapproving of one’s behavior. And he was such a demon for propriety that, when she had realized it was truly he in the flashy curricle, she had thought there would be the devil of a row. But then, he had seemed completely relaxed when he spoke to Darcy, so now she knew not what to expect.

She found the gentlemen in the library. Darcy looked a bit glum, but Sir Nicholas was speaking quite amiably when she opened the door. His voice broke off at her entrance, and his gaze met hers. The look in his eyes caused her to tilt her chin a little higher.

“Good evening, Sir Nicholas,” she said calmly. “How nice to see you again.”

Both gentlemen got to their feet, and Sir Nicholas stepped forward to bow over her hand. “Charmed, Lady Moreland. Permit me to say that married life seems to agree with you.”

“Thank you, sir.” He released her hand immediately and turned away, much to Sarah’s disappointment. How irritating of him, she thought, to show so little feeling. There had not been the faintest trace of jealousy in his tone. He had seemed, if anything, a trifle amused.

“Wine, Sarah?” Something in Darcy’s voice made her look at him sharply, and she wondered if he were thinking of their earlier confrontation. But he did not seem angry or even annoyed exactly. His attitude was more like something she would associate with a child, though she was unable to identify it more closely than that. Consequently, she dismissed it as a mere case of nerves, for she knew he stood somewhat in awe of Sir Nicholas.

Smiling at him now, she moved to seat herself on the small settee near his chair. “Please, my lord, something light.” Sir Nicholas leaned against the mantel shelf, watching them both. “Do you abide with us long, sir?” she asked him.

“A few days only, my lady.”

“We missed you in Town.” Darcy handed her her wineglass. “Thank you, my lord. I trust nothing was wrong, Sir Nicholas?”

“A minor irritation, ma’am, I assure you,” he said evenly. “Family matters necessitated a brief visit to Yorkshire.”

“Her ladyship’s in the briars again, I take it,” Darcy observed with a rather forced laugh. Sir Nicholas’s gaze seemed to flick him on the raw, for his cheeks reddened, but the older man’s voice remained placid enough.

“Not at all. My mother merely plans to follow your example.”

“Mine!”

“Aye. And that of our beloved Princess. She means to get riveted again.”

“Good Lord!”

“My sentiments precisely,” Sir Nicholas agreed. “Hence, my bolt to Yorkshire. However, you will be as pleased as I was to learn that the match is perfectly eligible. She means to marry Packwood.”

“What, that bag-pudding?”

“I’ll thank you to show a bit more respect for my future father-in-law,” said Sir Nicholas, grinning now. “He may be a bag-pudding, but he’s very well to pass, you know.”

“Oh, aye, he’s rich enough, I suppose.” Darcy’s tone indicated that wealth was a minor asset, but beyond a glint of mockery in his eye, Sir Nicholas made no comment. Beck having already departed for Town, it was Tom who entered a moment later to announce that dinner was served, and Sarah wondered briefly whose arm she would grace. But Sir Nicholas made no move to claim a guest’s privilege before Darcy took her hand possessively in his and placed it firmly upon his forearm.

Neither gentleman made a push beyond commonplace small talk at dinner. Sir Nicholas commented appreciatively upon the progress made in putting the house to rights but was tactful enough, Sarah noticed, to say nothing that might indicate disapproval of Darcy’s having allowed the place to go to rack and ruin in the first place. All in all, she thought, as she left them to their port, it was turning into a very boring evening. She wandered back to the library, certain that the gentlemen would soon join her there. They were a long time coming, however, so she had plenty of time to think.

She could not fathom Sir Nicholas’s behavior. He seemed almost not to care a button that she had supposedly run away with his cousin. Aside from the one brief remark, he had not mentioned their marriage at all. Really, now she came to think of it, he could be most annoying!

But if Sir Nicholas had behaved oddly, so too had Darcy. He had seemed relaxed enough during dinner, but he had displayed moments of irritation and possessiveness toward herself that Sarah was at a loss to understand. She had put herself out to show Sir Nicholas that she was pleased to be Lady Moreland, not so much to placate Darcy, of course, as to show Sir Nicholas that he was nothing more than an ordinary guest to her. It was rather distressing, however, that he had accepted the role so easily. Darcy, on the other hand, seemed one moment to approve of her behavior and the next to view it with suspicion. Oh well, she thought now with a sigh, it was done. Sir Nicholas now knew her to be a happily married woman, and if she handled her husband right, there was no reason why she should not become just that. And why that idea should be such a depressing one, she was at a loss to say.

She sighed again, heavily. She would have liked to go to bed or at least to go upstairs to check on Penny. But she forced herself to remain where she was. To go at once, while the gentlemen still lingered over their port, might seem rude.

At that moment the door opened from the hall, and to her surprise, Darcy entered alone. It was clear from his uncertain navigation that he had had a great deal to drink and, from his expression, that he had come to her with a firm purpose in mind. Sarah gathered her resources to meet what was rapidly beginning to look like a difficult situation.

“S
O HERE YOU ARE
,” Darcy said almost belligerently, his words slurring badly.

“As you see, my lord,” Sarah returned calmly. “Where is Sir Nicholas?”

Darcy grimaced. “Aye, you’d like to know, wouldn’t you? Trickin’ yourself out like a damned trollop for him, as you have!” He kicked the door shut behind him.

Sarah’s temper flared at his language, but she managed to suppress the stinging retort that rose to her lips, saying temperately instead, “I am sorry you feel that way, my lord. I thought only to spare us all embarrassment by making it appear that you and I are happy together.”

“You didn’t rig yourself out like a damned golden statue to please me, Sarah, and don’t think you can cozen me into thinking otherwise. I’m not a bloody knock-in-the-cradle. You did it for Nick!”

“Why … how dare you, sir!” She was shocked by the venom in his voice, but even more so by his accusation. Surely, she had done no such thing! But then, honesty intruded, bringing a delicate flush to her cheeks. Perhaps she had not intentionally flirted with Sir Nicholas, but she could not deny having tried to stir his jealousy. From Darcy’s point of view, would that not amount to the same thing in the long run?