The Marquis Takes a Bride (12 page)

Guy made sympathetic noises while he privately felt a growing admiration for Jennie. What a little actress!

“I believe I shall see you at the Tremayne
musicale
this evening,” said Guy, proud to have secured such an irreproachable invitation for himself.

Jennie nodded. “It will be my first party since… since…” her voice faltered.

Guy pressed her hand, thinking impatiently that she was overdoing her broken-hearted act a trifle.

Guy heard the sound of the Marquis returning and hastily took his leave. Chemmy, who was standing in the hall with Mr. Porteous, the tutor, gave him a civil nod, but the craggy Scotchman gave him a strange look from under his shaggy brows.

Jennie applied herself impatiently to her lessons for the rest of the afternoon. She found herself hoping that Guy would be
very
attentive to her that evening and that Chemmy would notice. Her husband sometimes did not even seem to notice she was a female!

The heavy brogue of her tutor broke into her thoughts. “I think, my leddy, that you have maistered a fair copperplate. We will finish today in this fashion. I will read you this passage from Cicero’s
De amicitia
which you will write out for me. ‘Nature ordains friendship with relatives, but it is never very stable.’ Aye, just so.”

The Tremayne’s
musicale
was an elegant affair. Jennie was flushed and happy to be back at a party again. She looked very pretty in her half-mourning of lavender with touches of black. Guy was as attentive as she had hoped but her amiable husband smiled lazily on them both with unimpaired good humor.

A buffet supper was to be served in the conservatory after the recital and, as the chairs scraped back and people rose to their feet, Jennie noticed with a bitter little pang that Alice Waring was of the company.

Mrs. Waring was dressed in lavender also, but clinging and revealing lavender muslin, which seemed to mock Jennie’s sedate half-mourning.

A magnificent collar of diamonds flashed on her creamy neck and a fairy-tale tiara of diamonds flashed in the gold of her hair. The Marquis had crossed to her side and was bending his head towards her, laughing at something she was saying.

Jennie became aware that Guy was studying the conflicting emotions on her face and said hurriedly, “What magnificent diamonds Mrs. Waring has on. I wonder if the Charrington diamonds are half as beautiful. Chemmy must have forgotten to give them to me. I must remind him.”

Guy had such a sudden, brilliant, dazzling idea that he nearly choked. Hurriedly composing himself, he said in a low, sad voice. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jennie.”

“Why?” demanded Jennie, her eyes wide with amazement.

“Oh, my wicked tongue,” said Guy. “Never mind.”

Jennie looked from Guy to the diamonds decorating Alice Waring and back to Guy again.

“If you do not tell me what you were about to say, I shall
never
speak to you again,” retorted Jennie, her voice with a shrill edge.

“Hush, now. Forget it.”

“Tell me,” hissed Jennie. “Tell me,
now
.”

“My dear,” said Guy with a great show of reluctance, “I will only tell you what I know if you promise
never
to tell your husband. I do not wish to be killed.”

“I’ll promise you
anything
,” said Jennie, stamping her foot.

“Very well,” sighed Guy. “If you must know, the diamonds…”

“Come. Let me escort you to supper, dear heart,” came the voice of the Marquis. Guy hurriedly retreated.

Jennie did not know what she ate, she did not know what Chemmy said. She picked at the food on her plate and gulped down a great quantity of wine and watched and watched for some opportunity to talk to Guy again.

To her horror, she heard the Marquis suggesting that they take their leave. Other guests were already departing. The Marquis turned his head to greet a friend and Jennie seized her opportunity. Muttering something about needing to repair her dress, she fled from the room, throwing Guy a pleading glance as she went. She ran lightly up the stairs and then paused half way and looked down into the hall until she saw Guy emerging from the conservatory.

“Well?” she whispered urgently. “Well?”

And Guy’s mocking whisper floated back up the stairs, “The diamonds Alice is wearing
are
the Charrington diamonds.”

The conservatory doors swung open behind him and a rush of noise poured into the hall as the Marquis and several other guests appeared.

Jennie went slowly and numbly down to join her husband. Silently, she listened to his pleasant drawl as they jolted home in the carriage. Silently, she sat in the drawing room with him, lifting the mixing bowls and cannisters out of the rosewood teapoy, preparatory to making the nightly pot of tea which they had become accustomed to sharing.

“You are very sad and worried-looking tonight,” said the Marquis in a more serious voice than he normally used. “I had hoped your distress over your grandparents’ death would have abated by now.”

Jennie’s numbness fled leaving her shaking from a series of violent emotions—jealousy, fear, loneliness, and hate for this two-faced thing of a husband who had just turned out not to be the paragon she had become to believe.

“I’ll tell you why I’m sad,” she said in a light voice which belied the violence of her feelings. “I haven’t
really
been mourning for poor grandpapa. I have been mourning for myself.”

She flashed a glittering smile in the direction of her large husband and then proceeded to pour tea with a steady hand.

“Yes, indeed,” she went on, “if only the old man had died sooner, then I would have had money enough and not have had to endure this farce of a marriage.”

“You’re drunk,” said her husband.

“In vino veritas,” mocked his wife.

Jennie had often in the past hoped to provoke some violent reaction in her husband. She looked up into his eyes and realized she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

He was standing over her, staring down at her with his blue eyes burning with rage.

“Get to your feet, madam,” he said in a very gentle voice. “I married you for an heir and we shall do something about begetting one tonight for, by God, by tomorrow, the sight of you will make me impotent.”

Jennie shook with fear and stared pleadingly up at him. She longed to hurl the story of the Charrington diamonds in his face, but she had given Guy her word, and for all her spoiled and willful behavior, Jennie was still the soul of honor.

“
Please
, Chemmy…” she began.

He picked her up in his arms, ignoring her cries and pleas and struggles and carried her upstairs to her bedroom.

He threw her on the bed and held her down by the simple expedient of grasping her neck in his long fingers and forcing her head back on the pillows. Deaf to her broken sobs and cries, he stripped her naked with the other hand, the loose and flimsy styles of the day making it all too easy.

“This is rape,” she gasped.

“It will not be,” he said grimly, sinking on to the bed beside her.

He began to kiss her fiercely and passionately from the top of her head to the soles of her feet and only when she finally lay trembling and unresisting in his arms, did he remove his own clothes.

At one point before dawn, she turned in his arms and laid her head on his broad chest and fell quietly and peacefully asleep like a very young child.

The Marquis of Charrington lay very still in the gray light and stared down at the top of her curls. He then stared at the curling Chinese dragons on the bed hangings and wondered how he could possibly have been such a fool. He had, despite his protests to the contrary, fallen in love at first sight. He had given his heart and his name to what he had thought was an endearing, willful child. But the child had shown herself to be the type of woman with which he was all too familiar, hard and grasping with a bank ledger instead of a heart. He had put down her passion for her cousin to nothing more than a girlish crush which she would easily outgrow. But they were well-matched, Jennie and Guy. His little child-bride had only married him for his money. Had she been able to get her hands on her grandfather’s fortune before the wedding, she would have laughed in his face.

Though he was bitter and disappointed, it did not strike him as odd that he, who had prided himself on loyalty, could trust and believe in someone, then later believe that this someone was everything that was cheap and conniving.

The fact was that the small ember of jealousy for Guy had suddenly burst into a roaring flame and he would have seized on anything at that moment to show that Jennie was not worthy of his love.

He had been feted and petted and sought after for so long because of his wealth and his title. He believed Jennie to be no better than the rest. To date, the Marquis had had a pleasant life paying for his pleasures. Now he was paying for them, not in gold, but in humiliation and rage.

But she looked so small and defenseless, lying beside him on the large bed. He felt a momentary pang as he thought of her beauty, her youth and her many endearing ways. His mind closed down like a steel trap on these soft thoughts as being the mawkish weakness of a fool.

He was not surprised at her passionate response of the night. He was expert enough to arouse genuine passion in the bosom of even the most hardened courtesan. That rare and magic gift of love was not to be his. He wished he had never touched her.

He would never touch her again.

Sunlight blazed down on the dusty streets of London. It was another perfect summer’s day.

Jennie slowly awoke and immediately turned to the other side of the bed, but her husband had gone.

She smiled lazily to herself. What a fool she had been. She was in love with her husband, had been in love with him all along.

She became aware that someone was moving about the room and sat up in bed, clutching the covers to her neck. A prim elderly lady in a print dress had emerged from the dressing room with an armful of clothes over her arm, which she proceeded to lay out on a day bed by the window.

Seeing Jennie awake, the retainer dropped a low curtsey. “I am Jeffries, my lady,” she said. “Your ladyship’s new lady’s maid.”

She bustled forward with the bed tray containing Jennie’s chocolate. Jennie looked up at her new maid’s severe, wrinkled face and thought pettishly that her husband might at least have consulted her wishes before employing the woman. She would have preferred someone much younger and much prettier.

Then something about the maid’s name struck her as being familiar.

“Jeffries,” she murmured. “Now, where have I heard that name before?”

“My brother it was, ma’am,” said the maid. “He was dear Lord Charles’ footman and, when he died, your dear lord—your husband—he calls on me finding out somehow as how I had been retired from my previous employ and he offers me a good pension. Well, I was taken aback but I told him that I would not feel right taking the money without working for it and he said as how his lady wife was looking for a lady’s maid.”

Jennie bit her lip in vexation. She had not yet mastered enough worldly poise to muster up the courage to apologize to a servant and therefore felt doubly guilty. How on earth could she have forgotten poor old Jeffries! But her eyes filled with tears and that was enough mark of respect for the lady’s maid who said quickly, “There is no need for you to upset yourself, my lady. My brother enjoyed his life and he was indeed very old when he died. And he would have liked to die in harness, so to speak.”

Jennie climbed out of bed and allowed Jeffries to help her into a pretty morning gown of figured lilac silk.

Her hair was cleverly combed into artistic disarray and she looked at her image in the mirror with pleased satisfaction. “You have done wonders, Jeffries,” she said warmly. Much as she longed to rush to her husband’s arms, a slightly more mature Jennie curbed her impatience and asked the lady’s maid many questions about her welfare and told her that the rest of the old servants were well looked after at Charrington Court, but pined for Runbury Manor, which they still looked on as home.

“I thought I should perhaps sell the property,” said Jennie, half to herself, “but my husband will not hear of it and already has a steward in residence to supervise repairs to the building and to the tenants’ property.”

“Oh, his lordship would
never
sell Runbury, my lady,” exclaimed Jeffries. “’Tis a good sound property and he will be wanting it for his heirs.”

The thought of heirs and of how pleasurable it was to go about begetting them made Jennie blush rosily and hasten from the room, no longer able to check her impatience to see her husband.

To her disappointment, Chemmy was dressed to go out and was standing by the street door talking to Roberts, the butler.

She paused to admire him, wondering how she could ever have possibly found him foppish. His curly brimmed beaver was perched on his golden hair and his great height set off his magnificent coat of Bath superfine to perfection.

Then his light pleasant drawl carried to her ears with dreadful clarity.

“Very well, Roberts,” the Marquis was saying, “I think you understand my instructions. Mr. Guy Chalmers is to be admitted at all times.”

Jennie stared in amazement. Then she gave herself a mental shake. Of course! Chemmy had no longer any reason to be jealous of Guy after last night.

With a smile on her lips, she ran lightly down the rest of the stairs, crying, “Where are you going so early, my love?”

The Marquis turned very slowly and looked at her over the head of his butler. Gone was the sleepy, teasing amiability. His eyes were as cold as the winter sea.

“Good morning, madam,” he said with bone-chilling formality. “I did not expect your presence so early but perhaps it is just as well. Pray step into the morning room, madam. I would have a few words with you.”

Nervous and silent, Jennie walked past him into the room as he held open the door. He followed her in and politely drew forward a chair for her.