Sherri Cobb South (8 page)

“Ethan, darling,” she said, smiling through stiff lips. “You are looking well.”

“Never better,” he declared, crossing the room to take her in his arms. “I didn’t think to see you until next week, though. You took me by surprise.”

“Yes, I daresay I did.”

He would have kissed her soundly, had she not pulled away after the briefest of pecks. He released her, since she seemed to wish it, but far from leaving the room, he sat down on the edge of the bed and regarded his wife steadily. “I’ve missed you, ‘elen.”

She would have reminded him that they had endured separations far longer than this, but something about the look in his eye and the tone of his voice gave her to understand that he was referring not to the previous fortnight, but to a longer period—one approaching six months. The knowledge that he would come to her now, straight from his mistress’s arms, made her feel ill.

“It’s late, Ethan, and I’ve still a thousand things to do—
’“

“Aye, love, I won’t press you,” he conceded, not without regret. “I’ve waited this long, I daresay I can wait a bit longer. I trust you ‘ad a good journey?”

“Well enough, though rather long,” she replied, both relieved and disappointed at his easy capitulation. “There was an accident involving a farm cart and a load of turnips, so we were obliged to make a detour. Down Green Street,” she added pointedly.

She might have saved her breath; he had not the grace to look ashamed. “I don’t care ‘ow you came, just so long as you’re ‘ere,” he said with such conviction that Lady Helen almost believed him. “And the children?”

“They slept much of the way, and Miss Colling was a great help in entertaining them when they were awake.”

“She’s an ‘elp you won’t ‘ave after today,” Sir Ethan told her. “Waverly’s purchased a special license. They’re to be married tomorrow morning.”

“Are they, indeed? It seems a very odd match.”

“Aye, that it does. But so did we, love, and just look at us.”

“Yes,” she said sadly. “Just look at us.”

Chapter 6

We will be married o’ Sunday.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

The Taming of the Shrew

Lord Waverly called for Lisette promptly at nine o’clock the following morning. She was fetchingly attired for her nuptials in a pink muslin morning dress fashioned for her by Lady Helen’s mantua-maker in Manchester, there having been no time to order a wedding gown from that lady’s more fashionable London modiste. Her ravaged curls were hidden—and her heart-shaped face charmingly framed—by a deep-brimmed bonnet trimmed with pink roses.  She looked absurdly young, and Waverly wondered anew at the vagaries of Fate in contriving such an ill-assorted union.

He did not voice these reflections to his bride, however, but handed her up into his curricle, climbed up beside her, and set the horses’ heads toward St. George’s, Hanover Square. They had gone some distance in silence when Lord Waverly, glancing at his bride and seeing naught but the brim of her bonnet covering her downcast face, asked, “Are you frightened, Lisette?”

“Mais non,”
she replied without looking up. “I am not frightened, milord.”

“Nervous, perhaps?”

“Perhaps a little,” she confessed. “After all, one does not get married every day.”

Having been aggressively pursued by damsels eager to hear themselves addressed as “my lady,” he found her reluctance less than flattering. “I’ll not eat you, you know.”

“Oui,
I know,” she said sadly.

Having arrived at the church, he drew the vehicle to a halt and leaped down. He tossed a coin to a nearby lad, promising the boy another one for walking the horses until his return, then turned to hand Lisette down. Tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow, he escorted her up the stairs, past a flower woman selling her wares on the church steps. Obeying a sudden impulse, he purchased a posy of violets from her basket and presented these to his bride.

“Merci,
milord,” Lisette whispered, smiling shyly up at him.

The wedding ceremony was simple and brief. There was no wedding breakfast, nor were there any guests, unless one could count the few pious souls who had arrived early for Sunday services. The bishop peered suspiciously at the youthful bride, then pushed his spectacles higher onto the bridge of his nose and re-examined the special license. Apparently convinced that all was in order, he read the service from the Book of Common Prayer, asking the pertinent questions and nodding benignly as the earl and Lisette made the appropriate responses. The transaction was completed in less than fifteen minutes.

Afterwards, Lord Waverly escorted his lady back up the aisle, but upon seeing the church now half-filled with worshippers, the new Lady Waverly hung back.

“Should we not stay for services, milord?”

“Me, attend church?” drawled Waverly. “My dear child, the roof might cave in.”

“Vraiment?”
asked Lisette, gazing curiously at the carved ceiling over her head. “It looks strong enough.”

“I meant,” the earl explained with exaggerated patience, “that I have not been in the habit of regular attendance.”

Lisette saw nothing to wonder at in this declaration.
“Naturellement!
You have been in France.”

“The omission is not a recent one, I fear.”

“Ah! Then no doubt
le bon Dieu
will be pleased to see you again,” said Lisette, undaunted.

Lord Waverly, conceding defeat, made no further protests, but ushered his bride to a nearby pew. As the service progressed, the earl might have been pleased to note that the roof remained intact; however, he had little thought to spare for this circumstance, his mind being occupied with more pressing concerns. From the moment he seated himself beside Lisette, he was aware that they were the objects of considerable interest.   As the bishop delivered his sermon, the earl became increasingly cognizant of the surreptitious glances being cast in their direction—glances containing every known emotion from scandalized amusement to speechless outrage. Even he, who was well aware of his tarnished reputation among the
ton,
was a bit taken aback by the violent reactions his presence seemed to provoke.

All was revealed, however, at the conclusion of the service. No sooner had Lord Waverly escorted his bride from the church than Lady Worthington, once a bosom-bow of the earl’s late mother, descended upon him, righteous anger evident in the quivering ostrich plumes of her bonnet and the swell of her formidable bosom.

“I had heard you were returned to Town, Waverly, but I could scarcely credit it,” she began in a voice well-suited to the bosom that sustained it.

“For once, my lady, rumor did not lie,” Waverly replied, bowing over her hand.

“Would that it had! For it is obvious your sojourn abroad has done nothing to improve your delicacy of mind. Mark my words, Waverly, this time you have gone too far! Desecrating a holy place by bringing your doxy here—”

Tight-lipped, the earl drew his wide-eyed young countess forward. “Madam,” he addressed Lady Worthington, “may I present to you my wife, Lady Waverly?”

“Your—
wife,
you say?”

In an instant, Lady Worthington was all graciousness, bowing to Lisette as if she were visiting royalty. The crowd which had gathered to witness the confrontation now quickly dispersed to spread the news of Waverly’s shocking return to Town with a wife in tow, leaving the earl to reflect upon his own mishandling of the situation. He should, he now realized, have inserted an announcement in
The Morning Post
to preclude just such a disaster. As matters now stood, he only hoped Lisette’s English was not sufficient for her to understand the insult she had just been dealt. He retrieved his equipage from the boy in whose charge he had left it, and bundled Lisette aboard before her presence provoked an even more scandalous confrontation.

It was not until they had left the church and its inquisitive parishioners behind that the earl began to breathe easier. Alas, even then his relief was premature, for they had not yet reached Oxford Street when a whimsical high-perch phaeton in the form of a seashell drew abreast of them. At the sight of this curious vehicle and its driver, Lisette leaned forward for a better look.

“Ah, milord!” she cried. “Who is
that?"

Waverly turned to inspect the dashing equipage and beheld its occupant, a handsome red-haired woman of about his own age, leaning against the green velvet squabs. Perceiving his sudden interest, she smiled coyly and rearranged her well-endowed form in a more advantageous posture.

“‘That,’ as you put it, is no one who need concern you,” Waverly said dampingly.

“But she knows you,” Lisette insisted. “She waved at you ever so slightly and I think,
oui,
I am almost certain that she winked.”

“No doubt she did. But just because
I
am acquainted with a particular person does not mean I wish my wife to make that person’s acquaintance.”

“And this woman, she is such a person?”

“She is.”

Lisette pondered this revelation for a long moment. “She must be a very wicked woman,
n’est-ce pas?”‘

“Very.”

“Is she one of your
chères amies?”

“If you will recall,” said Lord Waverly through clenched teeth, “I have been living in Paris for the last four years. If she
had
been my
chère amie,
you may be sure we have long since forgotten the connection.”

“You
may have forgotten, perhaps, but
she
has not. She did wink, you know.”

Lord Waverly strove with himself.   “Lisette, whatever my numerous faults, I have never attempted to deceive you as to my character. I have had numerous agreeable connections with ladies of dubious virtue, and I will no doubt do so again in the future. One of these, as you have surmised, was Mrs. Sophia Hutchins. However, she is not now my mistress, nor do I expect her to resume that position. Furthermore, if and when I do choose to establish such an arrangement with another woman, I can assure you it will be conducted discreetly, and in such a way as to spare you any embarrassment. In return, I shall expect you to turn a blind eye to females of this sort, not ogle them in the streets!”

“Oui,
milord,” murmured Lisette, eyes once again fixed on the posy in her lap.

“And of course,” he continued more gently, “I shall make every effort to grant you an equal amount of freedom. You may have whatever friends you choose, and although we have not yet had time to discuss marriage settlements, you shall have sufficient pin money for your needs. Until then, you may have your bills sent to me for payment.”

“Pin money?” echoed Lisette, brow wrinkling at the unfamiliar term.

“Discretionary funds to spend as you see fit.”

Lisette’s eyes sparkled with sudden interest. “And I can buy with this ‘pin money’ anything I like?”

“Anything,” declared Lord Waverly, thankful to have the conversation turned to a more seemly topic.

When the curricle at last rolled to a stop before Lord Waverly’s sketchily refurbished Park Lane town house (which had been spared from foreclosure only by virtue of its being entailed), the earl ushered his countess into her new home, introduced her to its senior staff, surrendered her to the housekeeper for a brief tour, and promptly set out for White’s. This cavalier treatment was not lost on his bride, but as her fertile brain had begun to form a plan, his absence suited her purposes very well.

It was obvious to the meanest intelligence that her new husband had a marked preference for wicked women; therefore, she determined, a wicked woman he should have. She had no very clear idea how to achieve this admirable goal, but the chance encounter with
Madame
Hutchins had at least shown her a reasonable place to start. Lisette’s understanding of the English monetary system was rudimentary, but she was reasonably certain that the pin money of which the earl had spoken was insufficient for the purchase of an equipage such as
Madame
had driven. However, that lady’s kohl-rimmed eyes and rouged lips should not be beyond Lisette’s means to reproduce. With this end in view, she made discreet inquiries of the housekeeper, and set out for Piccadilly and the new Burlington Arcade, a veritable cornucopia of shops where, the housekeeper assured her, a lady might find anything she desired in the way of beauty aids.

She wandered among these for some time, wishing she knew if the unspecified pin money would stretch to cover this branch of artificial roses, or that length of ribbon. Until she could be sure, she felt it was best to restrict her purchases. And so, with a small sigh of regret, she laid aside a pretty painted fan and selected instead a small pot of kohl and a somewhat larger one of rouge. These she gave to the shop’s proprietor, along with instructions as to remuneration.

“You will please to send the bill to Lord Waverly,” she said in her lilting accent, as her purchases were wrapped in brown paper.

“Pardon, mademoiselle,”
interrupted a masculine voice as she bade the shopkeeper farewell. Lisette turned and saw a dark-haired young man doffing his hat in an elegant, if somewhat exaggerated, bow. Even if he had not addressed her in her native tongue, she would have known at a glance that he was French. Small and wiry of build, he displayed the fashionable extravagances of the
Incroyables:
in this case, a pair of billowing Cossack trousers in a salmon color, topped with a green cutaway coat boasting wide lapels. “I perceive from your speech that you are French. May a fellow traveler welcome you to these shores?”

“Merci, monsieur,”
replied Lisette with a smile, collecting her bundle from the counter before turning away.

“Wait! You will allow your fellow countryman to relieve you of your burden,
oui?”

Lisette, looking down at a package which might easily have fit inside her reticule, had she thought to provide herself with one, had to laugh.
“Mais non, monsieur,
I would not so trouble you. It is not at all heavy.”

“But you will allow me to escort you home,” persisted the Frenchman.