The Chadwick Ring (2 page)

“The nimble Tongue (Love’s lesser Lightning) plaid

Within my Mouth, and to my thoughts convey’d

Swift Orders, that I should prepare to throw

The All-dissolving Thunderbolt below.

My flutt’ring Soul, sprung with the pointed Kiss,

Hangs hov’ring—”

“My God!” he exclaimed, ripping the book from her hands. “What
is
this?” Ginevra, stunned and speechless with shock, could only gape as he leafed back to the title page. One dark brow arched sharply upward, and he muttered, “Rochester. I might have known.” He closed the book with a snap and handed it back to her. “I suggest you return this to wherever you found it without further ado. I can see that I am going to have to advise your father to monitor your reading habits in future.”

Appalled, Ginevra demanded, “But why? My father doesn’t care what I read!”

“That,” said the marquess coldly, “is abundantly clear.” He gazed down at her tense, defiant face, and his expression softened somewhat. “Ginevra,” he said, “I know you’re just a little girl and can hardly be expected to understand the significance of books such as this. Perhaps it will help if I explain that while the Earl of Rochester was one of the greatest Restoration poets, he was also an unprincipled libertine whose short, misspent life would put even members of the Hellfire Club to the blush. His writings can scarce be considered a wholesome influence on a young mind. Do you understand?”

She cradled the book protectively against her budding breasts. “All I know is that you are giving me orders, and you have no right to.”

His eyes narrowed, and he regarded her intently from beneath his almost effeminately long lashes. “Then know this,” he said fiercely, the force of his words emphasized by the quiet pitch of his voice: “you will one day be a Glover, and the ladies of my family do not, I repeat, do
not
read obscene verse fit only for the eyes of a Covent Garden doxy!”

Ginevra’s already rosy cheeks reddened even more. Her gold eyes widened and she gasped, “Oh, you ... you ...
odious
man!” She fled from the library, with his jeering laughter ringing after her.

She did not see Lord Chadwick again for three years—for which she was grateful—nor did she see Tom. Twice each year, on her birthday and at Christmas, Ginevra received letters from her fiancé, a series of formal, almost identical missives inquiring politely after her well-being. She replied in kind. Sometimes when she compared those stiff little notes to the passionate love letters penned by the heroines in the romantic novels her father brought her from his frequent trips to London, she wondered what chance she and Tom had for happiness in the cold-blooded arrangement their parents had made for them. She consoled herself with the knowledge that at least she and Tom were old family friends. That was more than many engaged couples could claim. She was sure that in time the regard they had for each other would ripen into a deep and enduring love, the kind of relationship her parents had had.

Ginevra looked forward to her seventeenth birthday eagerly, for Tom and his family were to visit, and at last the engagement was to be formally announced. She could even face the prospect of meeting the marquess again without dismay. Her anger had begun to abate even before the beautifully engraved volume of Blake’s
Songs of Innocence
arrived from London by special courier, but it had been some time before she could remember the naive little girl she had been with a sort of wistful indulgence. Now she hoped to impress her future father-in-law with her new maturity, but mostly she wanted to see Tom again. She had an engagement present for him, a miniature of herself painted on ivory, looking poised and quite grown-up in the low-cut peach-colored gown she would wear to her party.

But Lord Chadwick arrived at Bryant House without Tom, accompanied only by a slender, gangling youth whom Ginevra identified with difficulty as young Bysshe, now taller than she was. Tom, the marquess said, was at Queenshaven, convalescing with a broken leg he had received trying to ride his father’s stallion, something he had been strictly forbidden to do. Ginevra noticed Bysshe snort derisively, and she knew without asking that the younger boy must have ridden the horse successfully himself. When everyone insisted that Ginevra’s first adult party should go on as scheduled, it was the marquess himself who placed the Chadwick betrothal ring on her finger. Ginevra could not help shivering at the hot light, quickly veiled, that flashed in his blue eyes as he studied her in her pink gown and murmured, “My son will be a fortunate man someday...”

When Ginevra’s birthday passed and the guests went away, she settled back into the life she had always known, suppressing the frustration she felt that she and her future husband had once again failed to meet. It wasn’t important, she supposed, that she and Tom were now virtual, strangers. After all, they were going to have a whole life together.

Then on a blustery night in March of 1816, three months before the long-awaited wedding, Tom and several underclassmen sneaked out of their quarters at Oxford and proceeded to a nearby gin shop, determined to get as drunk as possible before the proctors caught up with them. Urged on by his cronies, Tom stole the innkeeper’s cart horse and tried to make it jump a five-bar gate. The horse sensibly refused the jump, and Tom was thrown and broke his neck.

Ginevra shivered, pulled back into the present by the freshening May breeze that cut through her thin dress. Lost in poignant memories, she had whiled away most of the afternoon, and now she had duties to perform. She must inform Cook that there would be one extra for dinner, and despite her aversion to Lord Chadwick, she would have to see that the best guestroom was prepared for him, since she presumed he would stay the night. It was unthinkable that he should journey all the way from Queenshaven and not lodge with them. Most likely his servant was still somewhere down the road with the luggage. Ginevra’s lips twitched. She could not envision Lord Chadwick dawdling impatiently alongside a lumbering carriage when instead he might be galloping Giaour, his magnificent roan stallion, across the countryside. He was a man who raced through life—and always alone.

Ginevra rose from her seat under the beech tree, a slim, graceful figure dressed simply in soft grey. Her high-waisted muslin dress with long tight sleeves and a high neck was unadorned except for a simple ruffle of black lace at the collar and wrists. Although she grieved for Tom, she did not assume formal mourning when she learned of his death—after all, they had not seen each other for six years—but the somber clothes she did wear reflected the dark bewilderment of her mind: for as long as she could remember, her life had been ordered, predestined—and suddenly, without warning, all the plans came to naught. What was she going to do now?

Ginevra picked her way across the garden, skirting the daffodils dying back under the budding rose trees, and slipped through the gate that led around to the kitchen door of Bryant House. She was not ready to face Lord Chadwick just yet. She did not know what she could say to him to ease the loss of his son and heir. When her distraught father showed her the terse note the marquess sent—a few bleak lines inscribed in a hand as black and bold as the man himself—numb with shock, Ginevra had murmured conventionally, “At least he still has Bysshe to comfort him.” But even while she uttered them she knew the words were meaningless. Tom had been the favorite, the beloved son—insofar as the marquess was capable of loving anyone. Little Bysshe, so unlike his father in looks, never lacked any material need, but he held no place in the man’s heart.

As Ginevra passed into the kitchen, the soothing scents of the garden flowers were overwhelmed by the fragrant tang of fresh herbs wafting from the lamb sizzling on a spit before the large open fire. When the scullery maid tugged on the heavy chain that turned the wheel on one end of the spit, Ginevra heard a reluctant creak. She made a mental note to have one of the men oil the mechanism. Cook, a buxom grey-haired woman who had been ruler of the kitchen since before Ginevra’s birth, was taking a colander down from one of the rows of shining utensils that hung on the walls of the spacious kitchen, but she set it aside and bustled over to the girl when she saw her. She smiled at her young mistress with the intimacy of lifelong acquaintance and said cheerfully, “Well, Miss Ginnie, and what can I be doing for you?”

Ginevra grinned and came straight to the point. “A disaster only you can prevent, I fear. As you know, Lord Chadwick has just arrived unexpectedly to see my father. What can we feed him?”

Cook rubbed her round cheek thoughtfully, leaving a smear of flour under a bright blue eye. “Poor man’ll be hungry after his journey,” she muttered, musing aloud, “what with losing his boy and all...” Ginevra’s mouth quirked. To Cook food was the balm for all pains. The older woman pursed her lips and nodded sagely. “Don’t you be worrying none, Miss Ginnie. My Ben caught some trout this morning, and there be chicken and lamb and fine, fresh strawberries. We’ll fix his lordship as good a meal as he could get in London any day.”

Ginevra patted the woman’s plump arm. “Oh, Cook,” she said with relief, “I can always depend on you. You prepare whatever you think best, and I’ll go down to the cellar later to choose the wine.” With a grateful smile she turned and went through the door that led to the main hallway. Wistfully Cook watched her go. Miss Ginnie was as kind and capable a mistress as one could wish, for all that she was still but a girl. It was tragic how her great marriage had come to nothing. Pray God that someday soon some fine gentleman would offer for her and she could at last know some of the happiness that had been lacking so far in her short life.

The hallway seemed chilly after the warm, redolent atmosphere of the kitchen, and Ginevra paused at the foot of the stairs, shivering. Should she make herself known to her father at once, or ought she first to go up and change her dress before she greeted their visitor? By lingering so long in the garden she was already remiss in her duties, she acknowledged ruefully, and no childish qualms could really excuse her discourtesy to the marquess. But on her skirt was a definite streak of damp, clinging earth, and she could not compound her ill manners by appearing before Lord Chadwick grubby as an urchin.

As Ginevra loitered in the hallway, toying with her dress, she heard angry voices coming from her father’s study. She glanced up in surprise. She could not recollect the last time she had heard her father’s voice raised. Since his wife’s death Sir Charles had grown quieter, increasingly taciturn, until sometimes days went by without him uttering a dozen words to his daughter. Ginevra listened curiously. The two voices were distinct but muffled by the closed door, so that she could not make out the words.

She heard her father’s voice, high and querulous, the intonations of a man growing old before his time. Lord Chadwick’s tones were much deeper, and she could not hear so much as feel them, like the distant rumble of thunder. Suddenly the marquess’s voice rang out, piercing the closed door so that every word was clear: “No, Bryant, the boy is still too young.”

Then Ginevra heard her father sputter, “But dammit, Chadwick, I cannot wait!”

Ginevra’s heart faltered with sudden foreboding. Dear God, what was going on? What were the men plotting in the study—and for whom? Who was the boy who was too young—too young for what? She gathered her skirts in her hands and fled up the stairs to her bedroom.

Her chamber door opened just as she reached it, and Emma Jarvis, her maid and dearest companion, rushed out, looking harried. Emma was a tall, well-built woman twelve years Ginevra’s senior, who had served the girl since she herself was little more than a girl. Her dark brown hair and pensive green eyes had captured the hearts of several of the men on the estate, but Emma ignored them all. Cook once hinted to Ginevra that Emma had had a sweetheart who fell to the press gangs and died at Trafalgar, and since then she dared care for no man.

Emma cried, “Oh, Miss Ginevra, there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Your father wants you in the study.”

“Yes, I know,” Ginevra sighed. “But first I must change my dress. I look like a mudlark. Find me something, will you? The brown bombazine, I think.”

Emma made a face. “Not that awful thing, you know the color doesn’t suit you at all. Why don’t you wear the white muslin with yellow ribbons that you made for your trou—” She stopped abruptly.

Ginevra shook her head. “No, Emma, the evening is turning too cool for a light dress. Besides, it would be disrespectful to our guest to appear too gay when Tom died but two months ago. Now, help me into the bombazine and then we’ll see if we can do anything with my hair.”

A quarter of an hour later Ginevra tapped lightly on the door to the now-quiet study. At her father’s command she entered. She kept her eyes trained on her father, but she was instantly and acutely aware of the man who stood tall and imperious before the fireplace, where a few embers warmed the dim, book-lined room. He was, as always, impeccably attired in riding breeches and gleaming boots, topped by a frilled silk shirt and an elegantly tailored coat of superfine, all of deepest black. Ginevra gritted her teeth. She ought to be wearing mourning, if not out of sorrow for Tom, then as a courtesy to his father. Fortunately, the marquess did not seem to notice.

She sketched a quick curtsy to her father and inquired, “You sent for me?”

Sir Charles grumbled irritably, “Yes, and you took your time coming!”

“Forgive me. I was out in the garden.”

Her father shrugged. “No matter, you’re here now. Do you remember Lord Chadwick?”

“Of course,” Ginevra murmured as she turned and curtsied, lifting her eyes no higher than the tops of his boots. “How good to see you again, my lord.”

From the slight movement of his legs Ginevra knew the marquess bowed in return. His deep voice was dry. “Miss Bryant. I spotted you when I arrived, but I hardly dared believe it was you, you are so grown up. You make me uncomfortably aware of the passing years. Tell me, do you still have a penchant for Sunday-school tracts?”