The Makeshift Marriage (38 page)

For a long time she stood there just watching, and then at last the rain began to fall heavily again and she retraced her steps. As she came within sight of the house she saw that Nicholas and Mr. Dodswell had returned, for the carriage was still by the portico steps. She saw them on the steps, Mr. Dodswell obviously taking his leave to continue to the farm. Nicholas looked very tired; his face seemed almost gray and he had for the first time discarded the light sling. He flexed his wounded arm as he spoke to the agent, and then Mr. Dodswell returned to the carriage and it drew away, passing Laura as she returned to the house.

Nicholas was in the library. He had poured himself a cognac but it was untouched. He leaned his head back against the chair, his eyes closed, but he heard Laura as soon as she entered.

“Nicholas?”

“Laura.”

“I must speak with you.”

He opened his eyes. “What about?”

“Our marriage.”

Not now, please not now
…. “I still do not wish to speak of it,” he said curtly.

“I am afraid that you have no choice now, Nicholas, for I am leaving.”

Slowly he stood. “No, Laura, I will never release you from those vows you made in Venice. You are my wife and I intend that you shall remain so.”

She stared at him. “But why?
Why?”

“Because that is how I wish it to be. You are Lady Grenville of King’s Cliff and you will damned well stay in this house!”

“Remain here to be treated with contempt? To watch while you pay court to Augustine Townsend and humiliate me? Never!”

“You are my wife,” he repeated.

“In name only!” she cried.

His eyes were dark. “Oh, believe me, Laura,” he said softly, “I am quite prepared to rectify that state of affairs. Quite prepared.”

“You would not
—”

“I am your husband, Laura, and your body is mine.” Suddenly he turned, dashing his glass into the empty grate. Fragments of crystal shivered over the smoke-blackened stone. “Damn you, Laura, I will
not
let you go! Do you hear me? I have done parting with what belongs to me, from now on I will keep what is rightfully mine
—and that includes you.”

She was shaken by the barely held fury of his outburst. “Nicholas?” She could only whisper his name in bewilderment.

He closed his eyes, passing a weary hand across his forehead before turning back to her, and for the first time she noticed how strained and tense he was. When he spoke, however, his voice was more rational. “Forgive me, Laura, but I have a great deal on my mind again, and as you know so well, I am not renowned for
my courtesy at such times. I promise you that I will speak to you about
—about our marriage. But not now, I beg of you. Later today, maybe.”

“What’s wrong, Nicholas? Is it the estate?”

“No, it isn’t King’s Cliff.”

“What then?”

“You will learn it all soon enough, but at the moment I am too weary, too damned drained, to talk clearly about it.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Oh, yes,” he said drily. “You can make this most difficult of days for me go a little more easily by desisting from this talk of leaving, which presumably will eventually entail an annulment, until I have spoken to you again.” He looked at her for a long moment. “Did you see Daniel Tregarron during my absence?”

She did not flinch from his gaze. “Yes.”

“At least you are honest about it.”

“Nicholas, I have never been dishonest about anything.”

“No, perhaps not. Ours is, after all, a marriage of convenience, is it not? Or maybe it should be termed a marriage of inconvenience; there are no doubt erudite arguments in favor of both descriptions of the same empty contract.” He turned away again.

She said nothing more and it wasn’t until she had returned to her own room that she realized she had not told him she was going to Lady Mountfort. She had said nothing at all beyond the fact that she was leaving King’s Cliff.

Five minutes later Nicholas emerged from the library, calling for Hawkins as he descended the staircase.

“Yes, Sir Nicholas?”

“Have my curricle brought around immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has any further word been received from Miss Townsend?”

“No, Sir Nicholas. She and Mrs. Townsend must have decided to spend today with the Countess of Bawton.”

“Are my orders being carried out?”

The butler faltered. “Y
—yes, Sir Nicholas, but—
”

“Hawkins, everything is to be done as I commanded the moment I returned. I want those rooms cleared and packed as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, Sir Nicholas.”

“Well, jump to it, man, I don’t wish to dally here all day!”

The unfortunate butler began to hurry away, but then halted again. “Sir Nicholas, if Miss Townsend should return, where can you be found?”

“Dr. Tregarron’s house.”

Hawkins’s eyes widened and then he hurried on to see about the curricle.

* * *

Mrs. Thompson could not hide her nervousness as she asked Nicholas to step inside. The hall was filled with baggage and trunks, and two footmen were carrying another heavy trunk down the staircase as the housekeeper fled up to find Daniel.

Daniel was putting the phials in a traveling box as she showed Nicholas in a little later, and he did not bother to turn around when the door had closed behind her again. “And what brings you here, Nicholas? Do you require a salve for your bruised pride?”

“You will require a wooden casket if you step near my wife again.”

Daniel turned at last. “Do you threaten me?”

“I warn you.”

“And why should I pay heed?”

“You would be advised to. I may owe you my life, Daniel, but I will still deprive you of yours if you see Laura again.”

“If ever there was a dog sitting tight in its manger, it is you, Nicholas Grenville. You want that damned bitch Augustine Townsend, and you want to keep Laura as well. Why? Because your pride will not stand the shame of her leaving you? You don’t want her, but I do. I love her and I know that she loves me.”

“I am not interested in your feelings
—”

“I have possessed her
,
Nicholas; she has lain in my arms and given to me that which you have chosen to ignore.”

“Have a care now, Daniel,” said Nicholas softly, “for I am not a man to lightly suffer your taunts.”

Daniel looked away, not daring to go too far, for there was much to fear in Nicholas’s cold, controlled anger.

“She is my wife, Daniel, and I fully intend keeping her. Because you were once my friend, and because I owe you my life, I give you this warning, but if I learn that you have so much as looked at her again, then so help me I will extinguish you. I do not toy with you, and I trust that you understand that fully.”

“And if she wishes to come to me
—as I know she does?”

“She will not come.”

“She is coming to America with me, Nicholas. Hasn’t she told you she is leaving King’s Cliff?”

Nicholas said nothing.

“Face facts, Nicholas, your loss is my gain. Laura is mine.”

“I need face only one relevant fact, Daniel, and that is that I am prepared to kill you if you persist.” With a cold nod of his head, Nicholas turned and left.

Daniel leaned his hands on the table, his head bowed. Only a fool would not fear such a warning. And only a fool could fail to see that Nicholas behaved as he did because he loved his wife. Only a fool. Or poor, unhappy Laura, who believed he loathed her.

Slowly Daniel raised his head, glancing at his own reflection in a mirror that hung on the whitewashed wall. Guilt looked back at him from the dusty glass. He had broken a cardinal rule, for he had now openly lied and cheated to win her. He had stooped to a depth that only months earlier he would never have dreamed possible. But that had been before he had fallen under her spell. Love could steal the halo from a saint, and Daniel Tregarron had never been a saint…
.

* * *

It was dark and Laura sat reading in the red saloon. Nicholas still had not come to speak to her, and Augustine and her mother had not returned from the Countess of Bawton’s. She looked up from the book as she heard a sound. Puzzled, she went to the window, looking down at the main entrance where she saw a carriage being loaded with trunks. There was a great deal to be put on the vehicle and the sound she had heard was the footmen as they sought to shout up to their companion on top of the carriage. Arms gesticulated and fingers pointed urgently in differing directions, and the poor fellow looked quite perplexed by the light of the lanterns.

As she watched, another carriage arrived, this time approaching along the drive, and she recognized it as the one that had conveyed Augustine and her mother the day before.

The door of the second carriage was opened, and Augustine stepped down first. She turned as her mother alighted, and at first did not glance at the carriage that was being loaded, but when she did her whole body stiffened visibly as she stared. Her mother’s hand crept to her throat. Augustine seemed to recover then, hurrying up into the house and out of Laura’s sight.

Slowly, Laura returned to her seat and picked up her book, but she was no longer interested in the beauty of Shakespeare’s writing; she was too preoccupied with the odd scene she had witnessed at the main entrance. What did it mean?

Then she heard Augustine’s raised voice by the door of the red saloon and Nicholas’s more quiet reply. He opened the door then and his voice became clear. “I will not argue publicly with you, Augustine; nor will I be questioned in my own house. If you will step in here, I have a great deal to say to you.”

Augustine swept in. Spots of high color touched her cheeks and her eyes flashed angrily when she saw Laura. Mrs. Townsend followed her in but said nothing at all. Her face was white and she twisted a handkerchief in her restless hands.

Augustine faced Nicholas imperiously. “I will not discuss any of this in front of her.” She nodded briefly in Laura’s direction.

“Laura remains here, for she is the mistress of this house
—which you will never be, Augustine.”

Laura stared at him. Augustine’s face was thunderstruck. “You cannot mean that,” she breathed. “Not after all you have said to me.”

“I have said very little
—you have assumed a great deal. Does it not occur to you that I may be as consummate an actor as you are actress?”

“What do you mean? And why have you ordered that all my belongings and those of my mother should be removed?”

“It must be obvious that the answer to your second question is that you are soon to leave this house forever.”

“No!” she cried. “No, you cannot mean that!”

“But I do. And you may be thankful that I am contenting myself with banishing you, not only from King’s Cliff, but from England itself, for it could have been so much worse a fate for you, could it not?”

The color drained from her face. “I don’t understand.”

“No? Perhaps it would make things a little clearer to you if I told you that I have been making detailed inquiries at a certain King’s Head hostelry in Taunton.”

Mrs. Townsend gasped, weakly collapsing into a chair.

Laura put her book down completely now. What was behind all this? There was more to it than merely discovering that Augustine had been conducting an affair with James Grenville. Unbidden, a thought entered her head, a thought concerning the earl’s secret, discovered and condoned by Augustine and her mother…
.

Nicholas was contemptuous. “Augustine, do not think that I am in the least concerned to know that you are my cousin’s mistress, for your sexual proclivities are of absolutely no interest to me. You leave me quite unaroused, I promise you that.”

“I know that that is not true, Nicholas,” she replied softly.

“It suited me to encourage you and the actor in me was equal to the task. That is all there is to it.”

“You are only saying these things because you think I have been unfaithful to you.”

“I could not care less if you were unfaithful with the entire British cavalry!”

“I deny that I have ever been untrue to you, Nicholas,” cried Augustine. “But even if I had, it is no reason to throw me out of my home. I am a free agent and do not need to seek your permission for anything. You married another, Nicholas, and you thereby relinquished any rights to interfere in my life!”

“You do not see, do you? My actions today have nothing whatsoever to do with your sordid affair with my cousin.”

Tears were pouring down Mrs. Townsend’s cheeks now and she was so distraught that she rocked herself backward and forward, moaning quietly.

Augustine threw her a furious look. “Be silent, Mama!”

“But he knows, Augustine,” whispered her mother. “Can’t you see that he knows?”

“There is nothing to know.”

Nicholas smiled without humor or warmth. “I fear there is no point in denying anything anymore, Augustine, for I have absolute proof of everything. At this moment my kinsman James Grenville languishes in Taunton jail, charged with plotting my murder, and he now awaits trial for his miserable life. You and your mother are as guilty as he is, for you discovered what had been done and chose to keep silent. You condoned my murder, Augustine.”

Laura rose unsteadily to her feet, shaken by the enormity of what she had heard. He glanced quickly at her and, seeing how pale her face was, held out his hand to her. He smiled just a little as his fingers closed reassuringly over hers, but she could see how harrowing and how very horrible he was finding this vile turn of events. She felt almost faint for a moment. She had been right; her instinct in Venice that the baron had deliberately forced the duel had been right. But oh, the reason, the cause behind it all….

Augustine was staring at him, her own cheeks ashen now. “I am innocent,” she whispered. “I am innocent and so is my mother. We know nothing of what you say.”

“I am prepared to believe that originally you did not, but that state of innocence did not last for long, did it? I believe I can with great accuracy pinpoint the exact moment when you found out what he had done
—it was that moment when your mother fainted in the dining room at the King’s Head. Am I right, Augustine?”