Marjorie Farrell (3 page)

“Sure, and it is a formidable name,” crooned Breen in his assumed brogue. “But in Ireland it is shortened to Nora.”

Margaret got up off her knees and brushed her dress off. There was a small bench in the graveyard under an ancient oak which spread to shelter almost the whole yard. Breen led her over to it and they sat down, silent for a moment. Margaret’s hands were in her lap, and Breen took one and examined it as though he found the combination of dirt and slender fingers fascinating.

“Margaret…” he began. She turned to him, and her trusting look, her vulnerability, affected him more than any woman’s coquetry had ever done. He bent down to kiss her, and once again Margaret was carried away from all of her former life.

There was no Lady Honora Margaret Ashton, virtuous and careful of her reputation. There was only herself, a self she had not known existed before this man had awakened it.

“We cannot do this,” Breen groaned, as he pulled back. “Someone might see us.”

“No one ever comes here,” Margaret whispered, reluctant to talk, wanting only to feel his lips against hers.

“But there is also the fact we are not engaged. Your father would have every right to call me out, did he hear about this.”

“But we
are
engaged,” replied Margaret. “Oh, not in his eyes, but I love you and consider myself promised to you.”

“As I to you. But it can never come to anything.”

“Why not?” she protested. “Why should we let him keep us apart? What if we went away and came back married? What could he do but give in then?”

Breen had, in fact, already thought of an elopement. He was sure the marquess would not be vindictive, and if presented with a
fait accompli
, would not deprive them of Margaret’s portion. But he had been hesitant to approach the subject. He was not sure he wanted to take even that small a risk. He loved her, but not enough to take her with nothing. After all, love didn’t last long in poverty. He knew that well enough. But if she herself thought it would work…? She knew her father better than he did. He looked down at her. “You would risk that?”

“I would risk anything to be with you.”

“Well, it might do. We could drive north, marry at Gretna, and continue east to Edinburgh. We could stay with my uncle and his wife until the scandal died down and then come back, the settled married couple.”

“We must do it immediately,” responded Margaret, her determination and recklessness burning in her eyes. “Tonight!”

Breen smiled at her. “Your eagerness gives me courage, sweetheart. But we need at least a day’s preparation. I must hire a chaise, you must pack…but I agree, the sooner the better. Tomorrow night the moon will be almost full, so we could start at night and avoid notice. Could you get out after ten?”

“Yes. My father and Lady Evelyn have usually retired by then, and the servants will also be in bed. I can slip out the kitchen door.”

“All right. I will come for you tomorrow night. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Surer than I’ve ever been of anything in my life.”

* * * *

The marquess and his new wife retired early every night they were not socializing. “Besotted” was how Margaret had characterized this behavior of her father, but she was grateful for it after all, for she had no trouble slipping out. She had packed only the necessary things: toiletries, a walking dress, nightgown and slippers, and her blue silk. She would change into that for the wedding, she thought, picturing Breen and herself clasping hands over an anvil. She shivered as she walked down the drive, and looked back at her home. She would not see it for a while, and when she returned, she would be a married woman.

Breen was waiting at the gate with the hired chaise. He kissed Margaret quickly and lifted her in. His horse was tied behind, for he had not wanted to risk a hired groom who might spread gossip afterward. The border was not much more than fifty miles as the crow flies, but it would take all night and part of the next day for them to reach Scotland, since they had first to go south to Hayden Bridge in order to continue northeast to Gretna.

“You will find a rug in there, Margaret. Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

Margaret protested she couldn’t possibly sleep, but once they were out of Bellingham, she found herself nodding, and settled into a corner with the rug pulled over her shoulders. She awoke a few hours later, thinking they must have arrived, only to hear Breen cursing softly under his breath. The moon was still high and the countryside looked unfamiliar, so she guessed that they must have passed Hayden Bridge and were on their way west. She peered out and saw Breen kneeling in a pool of light from the carriage lamp, examining the front-left hoof of the horse.

“What is it?”

“The damned horse has thrown a shoe, Margaret. I beg your pardon for my language, but I should have known that he was too cheap to be sound. I don’t know how we will make the border by morning. We will have to stop.”

“Here?” Margaret asked, groggily.

“No, I think we are not far from a town, if I remember the map correctly. We will have to find an inn for what is left of the evening.”

“All right.”

Both were too tired to consider the implications, much less discuss them. When they finally pulled into the inn at Halfwhistle and awakened the innkeeper, Margaret hardly heard Breen’s request for a room for himself and his wife.

“I will sleep on the floor,” Breen said, after they had stumbled to the small chamber.

“No, no,” Margaret said. “I will lie under the covers and you on top with the rug over you, and we will be fine.” She smiled. “You must be exhausted.”

“I confess I would not mind a mattress,” he replied, and, arranged as she suggested, they were both asleep within minutes.

Margaret awoke once, to the sound of a rooster. The early-morning sun was pouring in, and Breen’s head lay on the pillow, golden in a pool of light. She smiled, ran her hand gently over his hair, and went back to sleep. When she next awoke a few hours later, it was to see him looking down at her with a hungry look in his eyes.

“Good morning,” she said softly, and stretched reflexively, like a cat. He captured one of her hands as it returned to her side and stroked it.

“How did you sleep, Margaret?”

“Wonderfully well. I awoke for a short while to the rooster. What time is it now?”

Breen reached for his pocket watch. “After ten o’clock.” He turned back to her, and Margaret, as though pulled by a magnet, turned to meet him. Their kiss was long and deep.

“We should get up immediately. Were anyone to find out we’d spent the night together, you would be ruined.”

“I am ruined already, is that not so?” Margaret smiled. “Just by going away with you, even if we had not been delayed.”

“I suppose that is true,” Breen agreed.

“I love you, Dillon,” Margaret whispered as she slipped out of the covers. Her hands seemed to have a life of their own, for she could not resist feeling his mouth with her thumb or stroking the hair on his arms.

“Margaret, you will be my undoing,” he murmured as he kissed her behind her ear, sending shivers down her spine. “I want you too much.”

“I want you too,” she replied, her head bent, for she could not look at him and reveal the extent of her desire to save her life. She nuzzled against his shirt, reveling in the smell of clean linen combined with his own scent. She wanted to get more of him, and she started unbuttoning his shirt and sliding it off of him. His chest was smooth and white, his arms well-muscled and the hair under them red and cumin-scented. Margaret was aware of only one thought: I love him and we are to be married today, so why must we wait? He gently lifted her nightgown over her head, and she lay there, blushing, as he unbuttoned his breeches. Breen had no thoughts of love or marriage. He was only alive to the moment, and he wanted to awaken her to her own womanhood as he delighted himself in it. The women he had had before had taught him well; unlike many men, he was accomplished in pleasuring a woman, and so he moved slowly, only moving on top of her after his fingers had made her wet, warm, and ready for him. He entered her as gently as he could, but it was painful, and she lay underneath him, brought back to normal awareness by the strangeness of it all. After all that pleasure, is this all it is? Well, it is enough, she thought as he collapsed beside her and held her close. They both slept again, curled up against one another, only to awaken in about an hour, aroused again. “This time it will not hurt,” Breen said, “and this time I will pleasure you.” And Margaret realized that before had not been enough, that nothing would ever be enough, for how would it be possible to have him any deeper inside her, while she came shuddering down from those heights to which he had brought her.

* * * *

They spent the day in bed, and only in the late afternoon did Breen get up and go down to the stables to inquire about the horse. It seemed ironic to him that on a trip to Gretna they should require the more usual services of a blacksmith. He found the horse had been shod and they could make a new start in the morning. As he stood outside the stall, absentmindedly cupping the horse’s muzzle, Breen thought more about their situation. There was no need now to rush to Gretna. Instead of going west and then back to Bellingham, perhaps it would be wiser to continue on to Edinburgh. We could marry there and send the marquess a letter. Wait a few weeks for his anger to dissipate. And I could pick up a little money on the tables. What difference does it make now if we marry tomorrow or next week, after all?

Margaret was so dazed that she agreed immediately. She had been in another world all day, a world of undreamed-of pleasure, and did not want to think of anything practical. And to her, they were as good as married already. Her feelings for her father had undergone such changes over the last few months that she no longer cared what his response to her was. She now had someone in her life who saw her, who loved her, and who wanted to take care of her.

And so the next day they started out, retracing their route, past Hayden Bridge to Corbridge, and finally north to Edinburgh. It was a long journey, tedious at times during the day, but remembered by Margaret only for the passionate evenings they spent in inns along the way. The trip took more than two weeks and almost all their money to accomplish. They were both exhausted by the time they reached Breen’s uncle’s house in Edinburgh, and Margaret, having grown used to it, hardly noticed that Breen introduced her as his wife. She felt so married that the ceremony might well have happened.

* * * *

They were able to find only cheap rooms off the Canongate in the old city, and Margaret spent her days bargaining with shopkeepers, cleaning, and cooking. She also spent hours sleeping, but dismissed her tiredness as the aftereffects of their journey. Breen was out many nights “making their fortune,” as he laughingly put it. In reality, the money he was able to bring in from gambling was all they had to live on, since the Edinburgh branch of the family was clearly the poor one. The Whitmarkes had most certainly not known that Breen’s uncle managed a pub, having married the owner’s daughter years ago.

Margaret was taken aback by Breen’s willingness to earn their bread by the roll of the dice or the fall of a card. He promised her they would marry as soon as he made enough at the tables to find more appropriate lodgings. “Tonight for sure, ma dear,” he would say, rolling his R’s like a Scotsman.

And Margaret found that she was able to shut the door on that nagging little voice that kept asking questions that brought her down to earth: How could she respect a man who lived the way Dillon seemed to? Why wait to marry? Shouldn’t they wed and return to Moorview to make peace with her father and settle down at last to the proper life of husband and wife? The voice was silenced in bed, however, for in bed she believed in him. How could she not, when he felt like a part of her soul and body that had been missing all her life, at last to be found and refound every night.

* * * *

After a month in Scotland, however, she realized her tiredness was not fatigue from her journey, nor from the changes in her situation, but the lassitude of early pregnancy. She was ecstatic, and at the same time terrified. She could think of no better proof of their love than a child, but she delayed her announcement to Breen. She told herself it was because she wanted to be sure, but knew deep down that she wondered if he would despise her for conceiving out of wedlock.

It was finally Breen himself who delicately queried about the absence of her monthly flow. When she nodded a yes to his quiet questions, he pulled her to him.

“Ah, Honora Margaret, we will have to make an honest woman of you this very week.” He laughed, and she relaxed in his arms. He did love her and they would be married.

Breen put his head on her belly and said softly, “If it is a boy, we will name him after your father.”

“And what if he is a she?” Margaret teased.

“Then we will call her Miranda.”

“The Countess of Alverstone to see you, my lord.”

Marcus Samuel Vane, known to his intimates as Sam, looked up from his desk. “Damn and blast! What does the woman want this time?” he muttered, and immediately felt ashamed of his irritated response. After all, the countess was the widow of his best friend, and had been, many years ago, his own first love. But over the years, and especially since Charles’s death, those characteristics which had drawn both of them to her, her air of fragility and helplessness, had become more than occasional sources of annoyance. What was most attractive in an eighteen-year-old girl was less so in a twenty-five-year-old and positively irritating in the thirty-nine-year-old woman she was now. And Sam, in the last four years, had had plenty of exposure to Lavinia’s worst side, since he had been named guardian of the late earl’s son and heir.

The young earl was no wilder than any young man his age, and, in fact, seemed to be growing into as fine a man as his father. Lavinia, however, became hysterical at his occasional high-spirited escapades, and on those occasions Sam had endeavored to explain to Lavinia that too tight a rein would only cause rebellion.