The Makeshift Marriage (11 page)

He bowed gravely. “Welcome to King’s Cliff. I am Hawkins, the chief butler.”

“Hawkins.” She inclined her head in the way she had so often seen her imperious aunt do in the past.

A sea of faces then passed before her, each one bearing a name she knew she would not remember. The stiff formality of the occasion was almost ridiculous under the circumstances, but she knew that etiquette demanded that it be carried out to the letter. She wanted more than anything to go to Nicholas, to hear what Daniel Tregarron’s opinion was, but instead she must stand here and endure a nonsensical ceremony. The chief butler bowed again as the last maid bobbed a curtsy. Silence fell on the hall again, and they were all looking expectantly at her.

Somehow she must assert herself now. But how? What could she say? She felt so out of place, so inadequate…. A trembling panic threatened to well up inside her, but outwardly she remained as calm as ever. A maid hurried dutifully forward as she began to remove her gloves, taking off her wedding ring and resting it on the top of a long, white marble table in the center of the hall. All eyes went to the ring as if hypnotized. The weepers on the maid’s arm fluttered as she took the gloves. Laura replaced the ring on her finger.

“I will have all signs of mourning removed from the house immediately,” said Laura to the butler. “And all mourning cards returned from whence they came first thing in the morning.” She indicated a silver platter containing a great number of black-edged cards.

“Very well, my lady.”

“Where is Miss Townsend?”

A detectable stir passed through the hall. The butler cleared his throat. “Mrs. Townsend and Miss Townsend are not at home, my lady.”

“Mrs. Townsend?”

“Miss Townsend’s mother, my lady.”

“Oh.” She had two of them to face? “Where are they?”

“Taunton, my lady.”

“Why?”

“They are attending a subscription ball with the Earl of Langford, my lady.”

She stared at him. Nicholas had been presumed killed, the house was in deep mourning, and yet Augustine and her mother saw fit to attend a ball with the man who had tried to usurp Nicholas and win the woman he was to marry? “Very well,” she said after a moment, “that will be all.”

“May I take this opportunity to say how very glad we are to learn that Sir Nicholas is not taken from us after all? And how very pleased we are to welcome you to this house?”

She was reminded of Henderson’s words on board the
Cygnet.
The butler did indeed seem to mean his words of welcome, and the eyes looking at her from all around were not at all hostile as she had feared.

But her ordeal was over for the moment. With a hidden sigh of relief, she watched them all file out of the hall. A footman waited to escort her to Nicholas’s room, but as she followed him up the wide staircase, she remembered that the last time she had heard Taunton mentioned had been at Fontelli’s in Venice. By Baron Frederick von Marienfell.

The Reverend Tobias Claverton was waiting outside the master bedchamber. He was a vast figure of a man, clad entirely in black, with two crisp flaps of cravat standing out aggressively beneath his many chins. A dusting of powder from his enormous wig lay on his broad shoulders, and he emitted a strong smell of pipe tobacco as he bowed before her. Laura was to learn with the passage of time that he was a keen scholar of Greek and Latin, but that he knew more about Homer and Horace than he did about people. Closely related to the very superior and high Tory Countess of Bawton, the widowed owner of a neighboring estate, he hung on to every one of that aristocratic lady’s words as if they were the gospel itself. Where she led, he followed, and he expected everyone else to do the same. To cross the Countess of Bawton was to cross the Reverend Claverton.

But there was no real malice in him
—he was just incapable of seeing beyond the end of his bulbous red nose—and he was genuinely concerned about Nicholas. Upon seeing Laura, he immediately took her hand—although, despite this display of warmth, she could sense that he was a little outraged at the obvious haste of the marriage in Venice and was just as obviously wondering if she and Nicholas had, as it were, anticipated nuptial bliss and thereby been forced into a swift marriage.

“My dear Lady Grenville, we must offer our humble thanks to God Almighty for preserving the precious life of our beloved Sir Nicholas…
.
”

“Indeed so, sir.”

“Deo gratias. Deo gratias.
” He placed the tips of his fingers together, almost as if about to pray. “I trust, Lady Grenville, that we shall have the pleasure of seeing you in church soon.”

She could only murmur that of course she would go, although the last thing she felt like doing was braving the curious eyes of Somerset by going to Langford church.

“I will take my leave of you now, and,
Deo favente.
Dr. Tregarron will have uplifting news for you.”

“Yes.” Thankfully she watched his enormous figure move away along the portrait-hung passage toward the head of the staircase.

Daniel Tregarron was completing his examination as she entered the room. The master bedchamber at King’s Cliff was a beautiful room, furnished with polished walnut, its walls hung with gold-and-white striped silk. A predominantly red Axminster carpet covered the floor and there were gold-fringed red velvet curtains at the windows. Nicholas lay in a cream-canopied four-poster bed. He still shivered violently and she could see the feverish color on his cheeks. Daniel drew some warm blankets over him and then extinguished most of the candles in the room.

He turned to Laura then, taking her hand and leading her to a comfortable chair by the pink marble fireplace with its elegant screen. “You have seen the good reverend?”

“Yes.”

“I fear he finds his tasks onerous at times, especially when they impinge upon his scholarly and uninteresting dreams.” He smiled at her. “About Nicholas….”

“Yes?”

“I will deal with the ague first. He has a temperature of one hundred and four degrees of Fahrenheit and his pulse is one hundred and twelve in the minute. That, together with his other symptoms, suggests to me that he has the disease we know as malaria. From its name you realize that many believe it to be caused by bad air, the miasma from stagnant pools, but I am of another opinion, and believe that it is caused by the bite of a mosquito. I know it is early in the year yet, but I would imagine that Venice and the Mediterranean have that insect in plenty already.”

“Yes, it was very warm there, much warmer and more advanced in season than this country. But malaria can be treated, can it not?”

“It can indeed, by the taking of Jesuits’ bark, which I will prepare for him. As to the wound in his arm
—well, there I am less sanguine.”

“Why?” she asked quickly, alarm creeping into her heart.

“It was well done to refuse the amputation, but I must warn you that I am concerned that the wound has opened again. That is not at all a good sign. As soon as he has recovered from the rigors of the journey and as soon as I have managed to bring down his fever just a little, I will have to operate to remove the ball lodged in his arm. It is not my usual practice unless I see no other course, but I fear that the danger of putrefaction is too great. The balance is delicate.”

She stared at him. “But will not the shock of such an operation
—”

“Do you trust me, Lady Grenville?” he interrupted.

She looked into his dark eyes. Trust him? She hardly knew him. And yet…. “Yes, Dr. Tregarron, I trust you.”

“Then listen to what I have to say and listen well, for it concerns an innovation which you will find hard to accept.”

“I am listening, Doctor.”

“Have you ever heard of Paracelsus, my lady?”

“No.”

“He lived in the sixteenth century. He was a physician of German-Swiss blood
—he was also an alchemist and astrologer, but that does not concern us.”

“Of that I am glad, for if you were about to resort to reading the stars, I am afraid that I would indeed find your innovation difficult to accept,” she remarked drily.

He smiled at her. “It is Paracelsus the physician who interests me, Lady Grenville. In my opinion he was one of the greatest doctors of all time. I have read his works and there is a great deal to which modern medicine would do well to pay heed. As far as Sir Nicholas is concerned, it is what Paracelsus wrote of a substance known as sweet vitriol, or sulfuric ether, which is of importance.”

“Is that not used in the treatment of coughs?”

“It is indeed, but it has another property of which you will not know. Paracelsus wrote of it that ‘it quiets all suffering without any harm, and relieves all pain’
.
”

“And does it?”

“I fear that you find this claim to be of dubious character, don’t you? I hear it in your voice. But yes, my lady, sweet vitriol does indeed have the effect I have described. I know it does because I have used it upon myself. I was standing by my desk when I inhaled the vapor, and I immediately lost consciousness. I came around a little later to find that I had a very bad bruise on my forehead, and yet I have no recollection of receiving that bruise, I must have struck my head quite forcibly as I fell, but there was no pain at all. I have since used the substance upon a cat with a broken leg. The creature felt nothing while I set the bone and now she is as whole as any other cat. I am convinced that sweet vitriol is indeed a sovereign remedy for the removal of all feeling.”

She looked at him in stunned silence and then slowly got to her feet. “And you wish to use this sweet vitriol on Nicholas?”

“Yes.”

His words echoed in her head as she went to one of the windows, holding the curtain aside to look out. Everything was black and she could see only her own reflection looking back at her. Daniel came to stand at her shoulder.

“He will feel no pain and therefore no distress, which things are the cause of so many deaths on the operating table. Surgeons can pride themselves on their speed and dexterity, but such great and excruciating pain kills and there is no denying it. Believe me, I would not attempt to do anything if I did not consider it to be essential. The wound is angry and threatens to become poisonous
—which in turn will mean amputation after all. If I can operate to remove the ball and thereby cleanse the wound, then I firmly believe all will be well.”

“You suffered no ill effects from this sweet vitriol.”

“None. I understand your skepticism. I felt the same way when first I read what Paracelsus had written, but I know it is correct and so ask your permission.”

She looked across at Nicholas. “You have my permission, Doctor.”

“You love him very much, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She thought of something then. “Dr. Tregarron, do you know how word reached King’s Cliff that he had been killed?”

“I believe the Earl of Langford was told, and I presumed the British consul in Venice had relayed the tidings.”

“Nicholas’s cousin, James Grenville?”

“The very same. God forbid that there should be two Earls of Langford!”

She smiled. “You do not like the gentleman?”

“Nicholas is the only member of the Grenville clan I have ever felt any warmth for
—and if he’s a true Grenville, I’ll be surprised. I’ll warrant his mother had a secret to keep concerning his siring!” Daniel laughed. “You have only to look at the Grenvilles, all dark and swarthy, and then to look at Nicholas to see that he bears no resemblance whatsoever to them. Incidentally, perhaps
earl will be beside himself with fury when he learns that Nicholas is alive, for at this very moment he happily believes that King’s Cliff is about to fall into his greedy little hands. A totally unlovable fellow, is the good earl, I fear. Nicholas is as far removed from his cousin as chalk is from cheese, and that is probably why I like the man you married so much. I like him all the more for bringing someone as lovely as yourself to reside among us.”

She flushed at the compliment. “You are too kind, sir.”

“Somerset will rattle about you for weeks. I’ll warrant that even by midday tomorrow there will
not
be anyone from one end of the country to the other who does not know about Nicholas Grenville’s Venetian match.”

“No doubt they will all whisper that I married a dying man so that I could enrich myself.”

“And did you?”

“I married him because I love him.”

“Then what does it matter what they say?”

She smiled, liking him a great deal.

“Your appearance on the scene will cause quite a stir in other quarters,” he said.

“You refer to Miss Townsend?”

“Yes.”

“I can hardly expect her to be pleased. I know that he loves her and would have married her.”

“Maybe he did love her, but the fact that he married you must surely mean that
you
have his heart now.”

“I fear not, Dr. Tregarron. He married me because he thought he was dying and he was sorry for me. He did not for one moment imagine that he was still going to be alive over a month after the duel or even that he would be back here at King’s Cliff.”

“I know it is none of my business, but I know Nicholas Grenville very well indeed. Henderson told me a little of what happened in Venice, and I suggest that if Nicholas felt only sorry for you, then all he needed to do was make financial provision for you; he did not need to go as far as marrying you. If he was well enough to put his name to a marriage certificate, he was well enough to sign a deed of gift.”

“I wish I could believe what you say, but I think that a deed of gift simply did not occur to him.”

He smiled then. “Perhaps it is more of a love match than you believe, Lady Grenville.”

“Oh, on my side it is. I love him with all my heart.”

“I could almost envy him.”

She blushed again. He was very liberal with his compliments. She glanced at him. He was a very good-looking young man, and no doubt well able to set the feminine hearts of Somerset all aflutter whenever he wished.