Twixt Two Equal Armies (82 page)

He sighed and could not help but regret how badly a restless temperament tolerated a long journey in such circumstances. No wonder it had all ended so queerly, finding him now waiting for them, half grateful and half frustrated, watching horses being led about and counting the moments until his carriage would appear while at the same time dreading that very appearance because of the words left hanging in the air upon their separation.

He sincerely hoped Mrs Tournier had been wrong earlier when she announced in a clear voice, as he sat watching and Miss Tournier sat being watched, that a few days’ travel across the country in a carriage taught one more about one’s fellow travellers than twenty years of polite marriage could do.

“Not that this marriage looks like it is going to be burdened with that particular characterisation,” he muttered to himself while kicking an overturned bucket, innocently laying by the yard pump.

So, if one cannot make love to one’s betrothed on a confined, bumpy carriage ride, one must occupy oneself in other ways. As in conversation with one’s future mother-in-law about one’s betrothed.

“I hope you don’t object to a speedy marriage,” his lordship asked Mrs Tournier.

“I would think in this instance it was a sign of prudence,” was the answer.

There was a quick look from Holly, but Baugham avoided lingering on this self-evident conclusion of their marriage plans by a wink and a smile. She settled back, but he could tell her attention was piqued, so he decided to continue this successful line of speculation.

“Excellent! I was thinking St Thomas’ Day, the twenty-first of December, would be suitable. Soon enough for discretion, yet far enough away to make the proper arrangements. I will have no makeshift, blacksmith Scottish wedding either,” he said, still smiling. To his surprise, his bride frowned, so he explained further. “I have given this some thought and I have every intention of marrying you in a ceremony that is valid in England as well as Scotland.”

“Of course, you have! I never doubted that,” Holly said testily, “but Scottish marriages are perfectly valid marriages and seem to do very well for many Scottish people.”

“Exactly!
Scottish
people. Which we certainly are not. When it comes to the English, we can never be too careful with Scottish marriages, I’m afraid.”

Mrs Tournier abandoned her daughter in her gallant defence of Caledonian customs and owned that she agreed with his lordship. Holly looked down at her hands and pressed her lips together.

“And since we have no intention of getting married in London — ”

“In Hanover Square, that is,” she interrupted him. “I thought we only agreed on not wanting a society wedding.”

Baugham looked surprised. “You want to get married in Town now?”

“No, I don’t. That is to say I would not object to getting married in Town if that was easier for our purposes, since you just spoke so damningly about Scottish weddings, but — ”

“Well then!”

He directed this last comment to the mother, who nodded and let her eyes sweep over the two young people with some interest. Holly’s only reaction was a sigh and the act of parting the curtains on the small window and looking out through the mud-stained glass at barren fields.

“I will see to the right arrangements,” Baugham went on in a slightly more conciliatory tone, not realising that it was too late to for appeasement. “I will not drag my bride down the aisle for any ceremony that will cast doubt on the validity of our marriage, nor will I consent to any repeat performances for the English authorities. I want to marry her properly, in front of God and in the faith of my fathers in which I was raised and which my sovereign has sworn to uphold and defend. I believe there is an English church over at Melrose and I will have the Episcopalian minister there marry us in the same communion and with the Archbishop’s approval. If you can stand travelling the extra miles to have it done, that is. But I think I had better warn you. I have a strong suspicion that if you want to challenge this plan and St Andrew’s as your wedding church, you will likely have to fight both me and your mother.”

Mrs Tournier nodded. “Now as for the settlements . . . ”

Baugham waved away the question. “Of course. All will be properly seen to. I’ll have my man in Edinburgh, Mr Crabtree, come down to Rosefarm, shall I?”

“Excellent idea,” Mrs Tournier agreed.

“What about personal arrangements for my daughter?”

Baugham sat back in a satisfied manner. “Riemann tells me he intends to write to my London staff at once and direct Mrs Townsend to immediately begin inquiries into finding a suitable abigail.”

Holly shuffled uncomfortably in her seat and took to twirling her willow ring nervously between her fingers.

“And I swear the willow ring will be gone before it is worn through,” Lord Baugham said with an indulgent smile.

“I like the willow ring!” was the quick answer.

Both his lordship and Mrs Tournier met this bit of fancy with a small laugh. After that, Baugham now realised, he had committed the grave error of launching into further detail about the wedding breakfast at Clyne, mistakenly taking his bride’s silence as a sign of interest and approval. Granted, he was thoroughly deceived as to the prudence of discussing all these important matters right then and there by Mrs Tournier’s relentless quizzing as to his future plans: his return from Cheshire, whether he had made any travel plans for the honeymoon period, and where he intended they would settle afterward, were each examined in detail and he prided himself with the fact that he had ready answers to give for each of her inquiries. So much so, that when the conversation turned to the sticky point of whether the prospective bride should honour her current employment obligations, and if so, how, they were so immersed in the subject they did not notice that bride’s features growing positively forbidding.

After at least an hour of deliberation and still unable to come to an immediate solution that could be satisfactory to all parties, he and Mrs Tournier agreed to put the subject aside for the time being; she picked up her book again and he turned his attention back to his lovely, but now silently staring, beloved. As he sat watching her gaze thoughtfully at the passing scenery through the window glass, contemplating just how much he was looking forward to wedded bliss, and so quickly back to the same distressing dilemma as before, he felt a pair of sharp eyes peering over the book at him. He coughed, fidgeted, smiled sheepishly and turned his own attention out the window, and at the next roadside establishment they passed, rapped on the roof of the carriage with his walking stick.

His fiancée had not been very understanding of his sudden desire to hire a horse and ride ahead to secure lodgings on this last night before they were forced to part ways, and she made no secret of the fact. In fact, it seemed to him through their heated exchange of words while the horses were changed and he was procuring his own mount, that she was dissatisfied with his every gesture and word. The quarrel that took place out in the lawn before the tavern had not only attracted the amused attention of several other travellers, it also reinforced his desperate resolution that a separation was indeed for the best.

After securing three more than adequate rooms, and partaking of a warm meal and a hot bath, he felt much better, and when his carriage arrived, he greeted the occupants with equanimity.

His future bride met his greeting with a narrowed-eyed look of frustration.

“Well, I see you obviously have benefitted from our separation, my lord,” she said tartly. “You have me at a disadvantage, I’m afraid.”

Her mother gave her one exasperated look before she swept up the stairs to the building and away from the rush of horses, vehicles and traffic around them

“You need a bath,” she told her daughter, “though I might just take the opportunity of washing out your mouth myself!”

Baugham had the good sense to hide his amusement behind a wide-eyed incredulous look and said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” he said and then concentrated at drawing his betrothed away from the menacing movements of the horses and ostlers rushing around them. “I am a miserable traveller, but I should not have expected your sufferings to be considerably eased by just removing myself. I wish I could have made you fly.”

“Fly!”

Holly’s frustrations at having been forced to sit with all her objections and pent up frustrations for the better part of the afternoon came out in a disgusted cry. It now was impossible for his lordship to ignore it.

“You’re still upset with me.” Once again he was awarded with a disgusted noise. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He took her arm and gently steered her up to the front of the Inn. “Now about that bath . . . ”

Her eyes flew open. “Don’t tell me you’ve arranged that, too!”

“I’ve arranged it all. It is what we agreed, after all,” his lordship defended himself, not a little perplexed. “What? You don’t like to bathe?”

“It is what
you
agreed,” she retorted with a sigh. “I have scarcely been able to draw breath lately without something being agreed about me.”

His stare intensified and had she known him a little better there would have been enough warning signs in the way he looked at her to realise she had tread on sensitive matters.

“You resent my actions on your behalf?”

“Not really,” she muttered, fully aware she was pouting like a schoolgirl, but desperate to regain some control. It seemed she had given up every semblance of that in her life lately. Since agreeing so happily to marry him, so much was already being decided for her, she felt she was not her own mistress anymore — not of her feelings, her thoughts, her obligations . . . What would happen to her if she no longer could rule herself? Would she disappear behind a strange noble title and Holly would be no more? Would she be sent around to strange estates among strange people in strange carriages with or without her husband? Would she float away at the mercy of her husband, society, unknown persons and expectations, and be lost to herself for ever? Who would she be then? And would she become forever completely helpless?

“But,” she said hesitatingly, “there is so much! You have no idea! My whole life . . . and all in a short time . . . You and Maman in that carriage . . . it will all be gone and I don’t know . . . Oh, I suppose I am frightened!”

They stayed away from the door where people were walking in and out. Standing in the shade of a nook in the ancient building, Holly felt his arm settle lightly around her waist.

“Not of me, I hope.” There was a softness to his tone, and even a playfulness, that refuted any possibility of her being so, but this time it was evident from the way he looked at her that he was thinking of other things, too.

She stepped slightly away and fixed her gaze steadily on him.

“Of you most of all,” she admitted. A look of concern flashed across his face but she continued, “I am afraid of how very much you mean to me . . . the power you have even now over my heart and happiness and the power you will soon have over everything else. And when you plan out my future above my head as if I am not even there . . . it frightens me how willing I am to place everything I am in your hands and how little and how futilely I object.”

His first reaction was to protest, to question her trust in him and be hurt in the standard convention of lovers, but before the words reached his lips he realised that she was putting a name to the same fears that he, too, knew and struggled with. That she would look him in the eye and share those fears with him so plainly, spoke of more trust and love than he felt he had any right to expect. He reached out and lightly took her hand, brushing the twisted willow ring lightly with his thumb.

“You’re right. You will not regret it,” he promised, “I cannot swear that I will always be right or perfect, but if your heart and happiness are in my hands, they are also inescapably joined with my own, which are in yours. I think, I
know
, we will be very, very careful with each other, and therefore ourselves.”

He brought her hand to his lips and he saw her expression soften.

Both of them concentrated on that little piece of twisted wood, already so fragile and abused in love and affection.

“The willow ring stays?” he said.

“The willow ring stays,” she said firmly.

“Can I give you another one, too?”

“Another willow ring?”

He shrugged. “Or whatever material seems appropriate and is available.”

She suppressed a smile. “Oh, very well. As long as you stop speaking so harshly about Scottish weddings and embarrassing me with monetary details. I felt like you were going to put a price on my head next!”

“I’m sorry. Those matters are important, though.”

“But not in closed carriages.”

“No,” he conceded. “Now,” he said with a tender smile, “shall we venture back inside and see if we can’t make the most of this last evening together?”

L
ORD
B
AUGHAM WAS AS OBSESSED
with horseflesh as the next typical gentleman, but his interest often took curious detours out to strange stables where he could chat with professional handlers, and quietly observe as they carried out the familiar, soothing rituals of caring for the dependable beasts. While waiting for his fellow travellers to take the baths he had so imperiously arranged for them, he walked up and down the stables at the back, paused to witness the dance of coordinated chaos as horses were changed and led away and then sat himself outside the inn to watch the busy road out of Nottingham gradually quiet down in the growing dusk of the early winter evening. Soon, there was nothing left to see. Even the dogs had gone home and the few people venturing out at all were bearing lights against the dark, even though it was barely dinnertime.