Vintage Love (158 page)

“You are raving!” she protested.

“No!” he cried. “I know whereof I speak! I have seen my brother coming from your room after sinning there with you! Not once but several times!”

“You sneaking creature!”

“Do not scorn me! I am a servant of the Lord!” he went on wildly. “And you are a scarlet woman!”

“I will not hear you any longer! Let me go!” she sobbed.

“You will hear me and then I shall release you,” the Reverend Kenneth said in the same low, hissing voice. “I have not spoken of this to my father or anyone else. Not for your sake or for my brother! George is a wicked person! I despise him! But I must think of my father!”

“You will be sorry when I tell George,” she warned him.

“Yes,” he said. “Tell George! Tell him your bedding with him must end, else I will reveal all! You will be sent out into the streets where you belong and George will be disgraced before my father!”

With this warning he gave her a final baleful look and went on down the stairs. She stayed in the sanctuary of the dark corridor until she had recovered her composure. Even then she was dreadfully worried. She was to meet George in the garden that night and she could barely endure the hours before she could tell him what had happened and warn him of the intentions of the Reverend Kenneth.

Once again there was moonlight, but Fanny was in no mood to enjoy it. All she could think of was contacting George and telling him of the ugly encounter with his fanatical brother. She fairly raced along the gravel path until she came to the arch of roses. George was waiting in the shadows as usual.

She let him take her in his arms and kiss her. Then she hastily told him, ending with, “I think you should talk to your father before he does.”

“I agree,” George said grimly.

“Your brother hates us both,” she warned him. “He will not hesitate to harm us!”

“Kenneth takes his priestly vows too seriously,” the young Viscount said with disgust. “Why does he try to interfere with our lives when he knows so little of the problems we face?”

“He considers himself the Lord’s servant.”

“A poor errand boy for the Almighty, I fear,” he said. “Kenneth has always been jealous of me. He is a strange, twisted person. I regret he entered the Church. He will do it little credit.”

Fanny said, “If he goes to your father it will make your task of telling him you plan to marry me doubly hard.”

“I have been too long getting around to a frank discussion with my father,” George admitted.

“Let us pray it is not too late now.”

“I think not,” George said. “Tomorrow morning will find me before my father, declaring my intentions regarding you.” He again took her in his arms and they remained in a long, ardent embrace.

Fanny felt afterwards it must have been the intensity of their emotions which plunged them into a world of their own removed from anything beyond themselves. She heard nothing as they embraced until angry words cut through the stillness of the night air.

“So I have found you!” It was the old Marquis come upon them.

George released her quickly and took a step forward to confront his father. In a quiet yet steady voice, he said, “I am sorry you discovered us this way, sir!”

The Marquis angrily drummed his walking stick on the gravel. “From all I hear, I could have done worse! Found you in bed with this strumpet!”

“Do not say such things, father!” George cried.

“I shall speak the truth,” the Marquis declared in his hoarse voice, thick with anger now.

“I know that Kenneth has gone to you with his tales,” George said desperately.

“It is good someone warned me,” his father replied.

Fanny stood in the background feeling that her silence was the most valuable contribution she could make at this moment. George continued to stand between her and his father.

George said, “It is all my fault, sir. I should have told you about this earlier!”

“Told me you were sleeping with one of our maids! I vow you have more brazen nerve than I’ve given you credit for!” the old man cried.

“Listen to me,” George pleaded. “It is true Fanny and I are in love, and have been lovers, for that matter. But that is because she is the only woman in the world for me, the only one I shall ever marry!”

The Marquis leaned on his cane and stared at his son in blank astonishment. Then he said, “I swear this is worse than a vulgar business of bedding! You have lost your senses as well! You are daft!”

George moved to Fanny and placed his arm about her. “I love Fanny, father. And I ask your permission to marry her! I told you I did not want to marry Virginia because there was someone else!”

“Daft!” the old man muttered in a stunned fashion.

“I mean this, father,” George said.

The Marquis stared at him. “Gad, I believe you do!” Then he addressed himself to her. “Young woman, what have you to say for yourself?”

“There is little I can say except that I love George,” she told him.

“So you love George!” the Marquis repeated her words with grim irony. “That is fine news, fine news, indeed!”

George said, “I beg you to make the best of this, father!”

“The best?” the old man sputtered. “There is no best!” And then he turned to her again. “Young woman, may I ask you to retire to the house. Wait for us there in the reception hall. I wish a few words in private with my son.”

George protested, “You do not have to go, Fanny. All that we have to say can be said in front of you!”

But Fanny shook her head. “No! Your father is right. You must be free to discuss the situation without my being here.”

The Marquis said, “Thank you for your good sense, girl.”

She told George, “I shall be waiting inside as your father asked. I beg that you do not have harsh words between you on my account.”

With that she hurried away leaving the two men standing there facing each other in the moonlit garden. Nothing was said within her hearing as she made her way back along the gravel walk. She was still stunned by what had happened, though she had feared something like it for a long while. At least the whole sorry business was now in the open and George had been noble when he had finally faced his father. What would happen next?

The old house seemed strangely quiet as she entered it and began to pace restlessly in the reception hall. The Marquis had requested that she wait there and he was not only her employer but also her prospective father-in-law! The enormity of this suddenly hit her. Was it possible that she, a servant in the house, could all at once become wife to the man who would one day inherit the title and own it all?

She knew what Cousin Lily would say. The stout woman would scold her for being so bold as to hope for such a match! Marsden would simply stare at her and mumble about the strange changes in servants. As for Peg and the other maids, they would consider her improving her station in the world, but at the same time they would think she had been a traitor to them. She had pretended to enjoy being their equal when all the while she had aspired to higher things!

Her pretty face was shadowed as she halted in her pacing to stare at the portrait of some ancestor of the Marquis whose bewigged likeness hung on one wall of the reception hall. What was wrong with trying to get ahead? Nothing, except her ambition had never been to make a fine marriage and rise socially; she had wanted to become a popular actress in the theatre. So, in a way, she was actually being untrue to herself. She sighed and wished that George would come. He had a way of talking and making things seem right.

The sound of the front door opening made her turn and look for George to appear. But it was the old Marquis who entered, not the young Viscount. He was leaning more heavily than ever on his cane and she thought he appeared older than ever before. He closed the door and then limped over to her.

She asked, “Where is George?”

“He’s run off somewhere,” the Marquis said in a grim tone. “We had a quarrel and he just ran off!”

“Ran off,” she echoed him, not knowing what to think.

The Marquis gazed at her with his sharp old eyes. He said, “I’m sorry. He undoubtedly will be back when his temper settles. I understand your disappointment.”

“I hoped he would return with something to tell me,” she said.

The old man sighed. “I understand.” Then he gave a second sigh and told her. “I doubt if he’ll return in a hurry. If I know him, he’s gone to the stables to have a horse saddled and he’ll ride off to the village tavern and drink for a while.”

“I see,” she said.

“In the meantime, I think we should talk,” the Marquis said. “Come with me to my study.”

The old man limped down the wide corridor to the oak-panelled room and she followed him with a heavy heart. She was worried about George and about the situation in which she found herself. She followed the Marquis into the study where a lighted lamp burned on his desk. He waved her to the leather easy chair in which she had sat that other time when Prince Aran had made her an offer to go to India. Perhaps she should have accepted the brown-skinned man’s proposal, however dubious. At least she would have avoided this pain and embarrassment!

The Marquis sat heavily in the chair behind his desk and stared at her in silence for a long moment. Then in his hoarse voice, he said, “George ran off just now because I refused to consider his marrying you. Does that surprise you?”

She sat very still. “No,” she said in a small voice.

“I expect not, you’re sensible enough,” the Marquis went on. “Of course George told me he’d marry you in any event. And when he returns that is what he will tell you. There can be no question that he cares for you.”

“And
that
you can do nothing about, sir,” she said in a tone of bitterness.

The Marquis nodded his head. “You are quite right! I cannot change that. I wish I could.”

“And I truly care for him,” Fanny said.

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” the gray-haired old man said. “Not a doubt!”

“I do blame him for not telling you sooner,” she said. “I urged him to do so.”

The Marquis raised his eyebrows. “I’m glad to hear that. I approve of frankness. A most important quality. That is the great thing about Her Most Gracious Majesty, Victoria; she is an utterly frank woman.”

“I would not know, sir,” she said.

“That is just it,” the Marquis sighed. “There are so many things of which you are unaware. Shall I tell you what will happen if George defies me to marry you? I think you should know.”

“If that is what you think,” she said, waiting to hear what he would say.

“Very well,” the Marquis said. “My first choice would be to disinherit George and have the title go to my second son. But I cannot do that. Kenneth has chosen to be a priest, he is a strange young man whom I cannot understand, unfit to one day become Marquis. Charles would do. But he is my third son and the last in line for the title. So while I will turn my back on George, he will remain my heir.”

“Because you have no choice.”

“Exactly,” the old man said. “The family will be ruined. I will have to resign my position at Court as advisor to Her Majesty. There must be no taint of scandal near the throne.”

“Would a marriage between George and me be so scandalous?”

“Yes,” the Marquis said firmly. “Not because you might not make a suitable wife for him. I think you would. But a man of title cannot marry a servant in his household without becoming a sensation in the yellow press! Now, if you left us, made a good marriage with some rich man, later to be widowed … then my son might woo you with only a small sensation as the result. But to raise you from maid to Viscountess will cause a furore!”

Fanny listened, realizing he was putting all her own fears into words, fears she’d fought against because of her love for George. But George was also the Viscount Palmer and nothing would change that.

Quietly, she asked, “You think I will harm George if I marry him?”

The old man eyed her sadly, “You will ruin him.”

“You believe that?” she asked tensely.

“He will have no future. Nor will you. You are both bound to be barred from society. You will live here in this great house as privileged prisoners. It will be dreadful for him but infinitely worse for you. For, as time passes, you will know that you were the cause of it all.”

Tears blurred her vision so the lined face of the Marquis seemed more like that of an ancient eagle than ever. In a choked voice, she said, “Could that be why he delayed so long in going to you? Because he knew, that ultimately, our marriage was not practical?”

“I think that may well have had a great deal to do with it,” the Marquis agreed. “George is not a coward nor a cheat. He proved that tonight by his defence of you. And he will marry you for all I have warned him against it.”

Fanny sprang to her feet. With all the dignity she could muster, she said, “You have made it clear to me, sir. I see now that George and I were lost in a romantic dream! You need not worry. There will be no marriage between us!”

“I pray there won’t be,” the Marquis said lifting himself up and leaning on his cane again. “But I think George is too deeply committed. He will insist on marrying you!”

She moved towards the door. “This time I will have the final say,” she told the old man. And with that she ran out sobbing.

Writing her curt farewell note to George and packing was a nightmare she only barely remembered. In her note she told him she’d realized her ambition to become an actress was more important to her than marriage. It was the only thing she could think of that seemed reasonable. She begged him not to come looking for her as her plans were made. She would never see him again.

Her innate strength of character helped her now. Once she had made up her mind that her love for George would condemn him to a miserable existence she kept firm in her decision to run away. It was the only answer. And a test of her love! She could not believe she would go through such a painful experience again.

She left another note for Cousin Lily thanking her for her kindness. And then she crept out the kitchen door and quickly made her way along the gravel path to the road leading to the village. She began to walk swiftly along this road and as she tired, her pace slackened a little. Then she heard the sound of a horseman approaching from the village. She peered ahead and was able to make out the figure of a man on horseback.