Only Marriage Will Do (32 page)

The adults gave a unified sigh of relief.

“Where is she now, Amiable?” Vee asked.

“I’d rather not say.” She scowled at him and he raised his hand. “The plan will work only if no one knows her whereabouts, except for Katarina and myself. If no one knows, then no one can be compelled to tell St. Cyr or any magistrate. This secrecy is her chief protection.”

“You know, Uncle Amiable, can’t they make you tell?” asked Jane, at thirteen the youngest of his nieces and nephews.

He grinned. “I would like to see them try.”

“What about the other lady? She knows. They could make her tell them.” The girl wrinkled her brow, her eyes grave.

Amiable squatted in front of his niece. “I wouldn’t wager on that, my love. In any case, Lady Dalbury is ill and will sleep most of the time. No one will be able to get the information from her, either.”

He looked at Vee and Reni and rose. “I am more than sorry this ruined your evening, my dears, after all your hard work. I am most grateful. However, you managed to give me the opportunity to dance with Juliet once before they took her from me.” He paused, composed himself before continuing. “Perhaps when this is settled we will have another celebration. Then, I promise you, I will not let her out of my arms all night.”

With the excitement over, his sisters gathered their broods and hurried off to bed, stopping as they left to murmur words of encouragement; a handshake; or, in the case of Vee and Reni, heartfelt embraces.

At last, Amiable found himself alone with his father for company, a circumstance he found odd. He and his father had not been close since he had defied him and his mother at age sixteen and joined the army. His father’s enmity, he supposed, had stemmed from the pain it had caused his mother more than from any dislike of the military per se, though they had remained estranged even after his mother’s death. Then there had been Pax, of course, his father’s golden child. He had not really needed Amiable. Until now.

“Would you like some more brandy, sir?” Amiable poured himself another and held the decanter poised over a second glass.

“I doubt I will sleep any other way.” Lord Morley nodded to his son. “I am too old for these kinds of goings on, Amiable.”

“I’m sorry, sir. This should never have gone so far.” He handed the glass to his father and sat down in an open armchair. “We have been trying to settle the matter since September. Now we will have to begin again, this time working toward an annulment of her marriage to St. Cyr.”

“She is a sweet woman.” His father sank into a leather scroll-back chair, the most comfortable one in the room. “I am sorry I did not meet her before this, though that is not my fault.” He fixed his son with a baleful eye.

Amiable sighed. The last thing he needed after the emotional tumults of this evening was a lecture on his shortcomings as a son, which seemed to be all he had ever gotten from his father.

“I am sorry we have not been able to come to Cheswyk since our return, Father. This business over the marriage has required our full attention. Of course, Juliet’s condition has been a constraint as well. I was remiss, however, to delay your meeting her. Especially as now we may not see her for some time to come.” He leaned back in the chair, morosely staring at the remains of the brandy. Weariness washed over him. Speculation on how long it might be before Juliet could return sapped his strength.

His father harrumphed and set his glass down with a thump. “You mean to say that between the titles of the Marquess of Dalbury and Lord Morley you cannot bring enough influence to bear on this man that he won’t immediately trump up a reason for an annulment? My boy, you disappoint me, indeed you do.”

Amiable sat up and raised an eyebrow. “Pardon me, sir?”

“If I had approached the problems of wooing your mother with this much trepidation, you would not be sitting in that chair right now.” The baron raised his glass, drained it, and cast a reproachful glance at this son.

“Mother never told me of a problem with your courtship, sir, other than her faith.” His interest piqued, he leaned forward. “She always said the look of misery on your face when she told you she couldn’t marry you touched her heart so she couldn’t bear it and so agreed to marry you that instant.”

“Humph.” His father scratched his jaw and shook his head. “Your mother was the dearest, kindest soul imaginable. She also believed one should never speak ill of the dead. So she never told you what her father put us through before she escaped to marry me.”

“Escaped?” Amiable sat up, fatigue forgotten. His known world teetered once again tonight.

“He had locked her in her room, forbidden her to see or talk to me, forbidden me to set foot on the property. All for her spiritual good, you know.” Lord Morley shook his head. “They wanted her to marry one of the men from their Meeting. Talked and pleaded and begged her day and night to consider if she married me she would be as if dead to them and to all her family. Finally, Margaret couldn’t take the guilt anymore and agreed. She engaged herself to William Shears, a man perhaps ten years older than her.”

“What?” Amiable’s head reeled with the shock of this revelation. “Mother was betrothed to another man?”

“Yes.” His father leaned back in his chair. “Oh, a decent sort. Friend of the family. She had known him all her life and liked him, but she knew she loved me.” His father smiled and crossed his arms over his chest. “The only thing I had in my favor. She never denied she loved me. I simply had to convince her our love outweighed her love for her family and her religion.”

“Simply?”

“Anything but simple in truth and, in the end, a near disaster. Her father forbade me to see her, so I couldn’t speak to her and plead my case.” His father paused, a faraway look in his eyes.

“So what did you do, Father?” Amiable could scarce take in this new version of his parents’ courtship.

“I ambushed her at her wedding.”

“At her wedding?” His jaw dropped. “She was actually about to marry another man and you…” He stared at his father. Did he know this man? He had steel Amiable had never dreamed of. It was just as confounding to discover his parents’ idyllic marriage had started off every bit as rocky as his own. “How did you ever manage that, sir?”

“The help of a good friend or two and faith in the belief your mother and I were destined to be together. I knew I would never care for another woman. If I couldn’t wed her, I would never marry. Not even to secure an heir.” He looked earnestly at his son and shook his head. “For weeks I imagined the long years without her, thinking of the life we could have had if I’d possessed the courage to win her. Thoughts of that desolate future without her were enough to make me risk everything.” He cocked his head. “Would you not risk everything for Juliet?”

Wordlessly Amiable nodded. Yes, indeed, he understood how his father must have felt. The image of that single blue slipper disappearing into the carriage would haunt him all his days. Life would not be worth living if he didn’t get her back. He roused himself from his reverie.

“How did you manage it, Father?” He burned to find out his parents’ hidden history.

“Well, one of my friends discovered the time set for the marriage to take place at the meeting house. There’s no real ceremony. People sit in silence until the couple rises to say vows to each other. Anyone can attend. So I went with two of my friends, not knowing what to expect. We were the last to go in and you should have seen your mother’s face when she saw me.”

He chuckled. “She grew pale, like she had seen a devil. Before either she or George could stand up, I walked forward and said, ‘I believe in my heart that Margaret Mary Dawson loves me as I love her, with all my heart and soul. I believe, in the sight of God, that means she should marry no one but me.’ Then I said to her, ‘If you do not marry me, Margaret, I will be a man lost to the world, for I cannot live without you. I will not even want to try. Please, please consent to be my wife, my love.’”

“And she said yes?”

“She stood up, wobbled a little bit. She looked at me, then at her parents, and finally at George. Then she said, ‘Yes, Gordon. I believe, in the sight of God, I should be your wife.’” Morley looked at his son, a tear glistening in his eye. “You don’t know how much courage it took for her to do that. Or how humble I felt. Like God had given me a new Eden to watch over. I stood in awe of her from that day forward.” He stared at the fire, unseeing.

The depth of feeling in his father’s words stunned Amiable. He had known of his parents’ devotion to one another all his life, but they had never been demonstrative before their children, so the true measure of their love for one another had gone undetected. Until now.

His father brushed at his face. “She stood there and told the congregation she loved me and she believed it the will of God that she marry me. She said she knew this meant she would be an outcast and could never go home again, but she must do the will of God as she believed it in her heart.” Morley sighed and rose. “After that day, we were never parted until the day she died.”

“Father…” Amiable stood as well, quite at a loss for words. What his father had suffered these past six years without his mother must have been the blackest of hells.

His father clasped his shoulder. “Promise me you will not rest until your Juliet is back at your side, Amiable. Move heaven and earth if you must. It may seem impossible, but it can be done. I did it, against incredible odds. I never once regretted the lengths I went to.”

He looked Amiable in the eye. “I’ve always wanted you to find the true happiness I did with your mother. I believe you have found it with Juliet. You two already seem as devoted as your mother and I.” His father drew him into an awkward embrace. “Find a way, son. Find it quickly.”

Amiable returned his father’s affectionate hug, the first time they’d ever embraced. Overwhelmed by the stresses and revelations of the day, he allowed himself to drop his guard, accept the love he’d never expected from his father before. He’d always believed his father’s regard for him ran a distant second to that for Pax. Perhaps he had been wrong about many things all these years.

“I will, Father. I will move heaven and earth to bring her home to me. And when she is with me again, we will come to Cheswyk and you can see your grandchildren grow up around you. I swear it on my life.” His oath strengthened his determination to put an end to his separation from Juliet. He would have her back and soon. By whatever means necessary.

The following Monday morning, Mr. Hezakiah Clarke, a mere wisp of a man, and what appeared to be a clerk from his firm, stood before the massive mahogany desk in the Marquess of Dalbury’s office.

Amiable and Dalbury had expected Grimes to obey the summons. Dalbury’s snarl reflected his displeasure. “Where is Grimes, Mr. Clarke? He gave damaging information regarding the marriage of my sister to someone other than myself. I therefore demand to address this breech of privacy with him directly.”

The wizened man’s face blazed red at the accusation, or perhaps at the marquess’s threatening countenance, but Clarke stood his ground. A difficult feat as Amiable had cause to know. “Mr. Grimes has taken passage to France, Lord Dalbury. I’m not quite sure how he managed it. Neither do I wish to know, nor am I aware of the business he is addressing there, nor when he will return to London.” The little man sniffed. “He should have given me more information. I am the senior partner in the firm, you understand. However, he merely left a note on my desk to the effect he was leaving the country. I have just found it this morning.” The man offered the piece of paper.

Dalbury snatched it, and after perusing it a moment, thrust it back at the solicitor and nodded to Amiable. “It says what Clarke here affirmed.” He rose and leaned toward the solicitor.

The man all but quivered under Dalbury’s scrutiny.

“You swear you have no knowledge why Grimes has gone to France?”

“None, my lord.”

“When did he leave London?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, my lord. That is why I brought my clerk. I thought you might want to question him as well. Buckley, when did you last see Mr. Grimes?”

The stocky young man stepped forward and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Wednesday, Mr. Clarke. Two days before Christmas Eve. A French gentleman came in early, demanding to see Mr. Grimes. They conferred in private until almost quarter of twelve and then the gentleman left, my lord.”

Dalbury turned his attention to Buckley. “Did Grimes say anything after the gentleman left?”

Buckley thought a moment, then shook his head. “No, my lord. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look well. His face had gone pasty white when he’d come out of his office with the gentleman. He went in to Mr. Clarke’s office for a moment, and then he left.”

Dalbury gave a curt wave of his hand.

Mr. Clarke said, “That will be all, Buckley. Go wait in the carriage.”

After the young man closed the door, the marquess fixed Mr. Clarke with a hostile stare.

“I don’t know if you are aware of what transpired on Friday, Clarke, but suffice it to say because of an indiscretion by your partner, my sister is now in hiding and must remain so indefinitely. I am seriously displeased with Grimes’s conduct to say the least. If he returns, there will be a dire reckoning. In the meantime, I will require you to look into annulling my sister’s marriage to Lord St. Cyr. I don’t care how the annulment is accomplished, but I want it done immediately. Tomorrow would not be too soon.”

“But, my lord, such a matter is for the ecclesiastical courts. And an annulment takes time, at least six months or a year.”

“Unacceptable. My sister will give birth in three months’ time and the child must be legally Mr. Morley’s. You will do this, Clarke, or I will take measures. They will be unpleasant measures, make no mistake.” Dalbury’s voice dropped to a soft but deadly intensity.

Mr. Clarke, wild-eyed, opened and closed his mouth several times. Finally, a bare whisper emerged. “What are the grounds for the annulment, my lord?”