Chapter 5
When the duchess rose to take her back to the small drawing room, Beth felt some relief. Once they were settled with the tea tray before them, the duchess dismissed the servants.
She handed Beth tea in an exquisite china cup. "You find this hard, Elizabeth," she said as a simple statement.
"I find it unendurable. Why do you dine in such state?"
The duchess smiled. "It does not seem so to us, I suppose. It is just the family."
"But what of all the servants?"
"I suppose they are family, too. What would you have us do? It is impossible to run this place without an army of servants. Should we pull it down? But it is very beautiful, and the staff loves it as much we do. They feel privileged to share it with us."
"What of the footmen standing idle in the corridors hour after-hour?"
The duchess laughed. "When the day comes you need something at the other end of the building or a message sent or someone found, you will be grateful, I assure you, Elizabeth. Actually, I recently suggested an improvement. I wanted to give the men chairs to sit on and books to read as they wait. They were most indignant. They felt it would lower the dignity of the house. But they are not ignorant, you know. One of them told me that he always stations himself in front of a good picture and enjoys the time to study it. We have compromised. They have agreed to be changed upon the hour. They are mostly from families who have served Belcraven for generations."
Beth put down her cup untasted. "Perhaps it is necessary to be born into this life, at whatever level."
The duchess looked at her. "From what little I know of you, Elizabeth, you pride yourself on your education and your ability to handle your life. Why then can you not handle this?"
Beth stiffened under the attack. "I did not say I could not. I said, I think, that it is pointless."
The duchess's eyes were kind as she said, "First prove you have the courage to face it, my dear, and then change things if you can."
Before Beth could point out that she wanted nothing to do with it at all, the gentlemen joined them. Though there were no servants present, the analysis of affairs on the Continent continued. Beth wondered whether anything might be achieved by an impassioned comparison of her own oppression and conquest with that of Europe, but guessed that it would not. This was the duke's plot, the duchess appeared to endorse it, and the marquess had agreed.
The marquess, therefore, must be her target. She took to studying him.
He held his own in the discussion, but she sensed tension in him. He was not warm or relaxed with his parents and at times seemed to take a point of view just to oppose the duke. Beth wondered if this was because of the present situation or typical of this family. It would hardly be surprising.
The duke was not Arden's father and they all knew it. She was the duke's bastard and they all knew that, too. Both she and the marquess were being forced into a distasteful marriage. When Beth considered the tangled relationships within the room she was surprised there was any elegance at all.
After a while, music was suggested, and they moved into a music room with a domed ceiling painted like the night sky. The duchess played beautifully on a harp and then Beth was persuaded to show her skill on the pianoforte. Next, to her surprise, the marquess took up a silver flute and played a duet with his mother. She would not have thought him a man to bother with music.
He must have noticed her surprise, for when he had finished he came over and said, "I have a poor singing voice. When we were all younger, my mother organized many musical evenings and insisted I do my part." His manner was pleasant. In no way was it loverlike, but then there was no reason here to act.
"You play very well," she said honestly.
"I enjoy it, but it's not a talent I advertise. It's not in fashion these days for young men such as I." There was even a touch of humor in that. "The French doors open onto the east terrace. Would you care to walk a little in the fresh air? The evening is quite warm."
After a slight hesitation, Beth agreed. For a moment she had begun to thaw, to react to his easy manner, and that would be fatal. The duke and duchess, the house and the servants, created such a solid fabric of decorum that it would take a cruder spirit than Beth's to rip it in public. She needed to be private with him.
"Perhaps you will need a shawl," he said, glancing at her bare arms. She would have sent for one, but the duchess indicated the one she had laid aside and he brought it for her. It was a beautiful Norwich silk which had doubtless cost more than Beth's entire annual expenditure on clothes.
As the marquess placed it on her shoulders, his fingers brushed against her nape. Beth shivered. Their eyes met and there was a moment of intimate awareness, a moment which frightened Beth to death.
She had to escape. She could never, never do this thing.
Beth hurried towards the doors, which he opened for her.
A three-quarter moon bathed the stone terrace, illuminating the sculpted urns set at regular intervals along the top of the balustrade. Ivy trailed from them and plants were poking up but there were no flowers as yet. The smell of the air was just the freshness of the country, and the sounds, too, were all natural—a few rustlings of small creatures and, once, the hoot of a hunting owl.
The air had a slight chill now the sun was down, but, as he had said, it was warm enough for her to be comfortable. She shivered all the same and drew the shawl closer around her shoulders.
He broke the silence. "It is a very beautiful house. Can you not find some pleasure in living in it?"
"How would you feel, my lord, living in the palace of an Indian maharajah?"
She saw his teeth flash white in a grin. The moon had turned his hair to silver. "I might be interested, at least for a while."
"So might I," said Beth coolly, "if this were a temporary diversion."
He broke a spray of ivy from an urn and twirled it in his long fingers. "I do understand," he said gently. "You have to stay here for a while, however. It shows clearly that you are accepted by my family. My mother will introduce you to the people hereabouts. You may find it easier when we move to London for the wedding—"
"I didn't know we were to be married in London!"
He shrugged. "My father... the duke is masterminding all this. His intentions are good. He wants you to be fully accepted by Society."
He was being so reasonable Beth was almost falling into the trap. She forced herself to fight. "But I do not want that, Lord Arden. I have a better idea. Why don't we elope here and now and live as social outcasts?" There. That should shock him.
If so, it was not noticeable. "Because I do not want that."
"And what you want will always come first?"
He turned sharply to her. "I give you fair warning, Miss Armitage. I have a temper. If you persist in snapping like a spoiled brat, I am likely to treat you like one."
"If there's a spoiled brat here," she retorted with a sweeping gesture of her arm, "it is not I, my lord. I am the poor working girl, remember?"
"You are a spitting cat looking for someone to scratch. Go scratch the duke and I'll defend you. Don't rake your claws at me."
Beth turned away. This bickering would never serve her purpose. "Your father said much the same thing," she admitted. "But it is you with which I am entangled."
"So it is with me you must negotiate," he said more moderately. "Let us find a middle path. I have no intention of having the world think me a fool. Let them wonder why I've chosen a poor woman of insignificant birth for a wife. I want no suggestion that I'm forced to this, or that you are displeasing to my parents, or that you are unsuited to your role."
His wants. His intentions. She turned back to him. "Or that I am unwilling? How, Lord Arden, do you intend to make me show myself willing?"
She saw him suck in a breath, perhaps in anger. Then he walked slowly towards her, smiling. "Perhaps, Miss Armitage, I can seduce you into willingness."
Beth's nerves gave a shock of warning as she saw where her words were leading. "You would assuredly fail, my lord."
She only got out a squeak before she was in his arms and his mouth covered hers. His arms imprisoned, so struggle was pointless, but he did not hurt her. One hand cradled her head, making it quite impossible to twist away, and his lips, soft and warm, only pressed enough to stifle protest. Beth was totally helpless. She had always known in theory that men were strong; until this moment she had not realized how strong.
Then his tongue slipped through to touch against her lips. She tried to protest and found it against her teeth, tickling against the inside of her upper lip. A quiver of something passed through her. She was alarmed by a sensation of dizziness. With sudden resolution she parted her teeth, prepared to bite. His mouth pulled back and he laughed.
"Life with you is going to be intriguing," he said, eyes gleaming. "And dangerous."
Beth realized with despair that she had somehow stirred his interest.
Still holding her, he said lightly, "Will I have to search our marriage bed for a stiletto?"
"If you handle me like this, my lord," said Beth fiercely, resuming her struggles and getting nowhere, "there will be no such thing. Let go of me! Being an admirer of Mary Wollstonecraft does not mean I give my favors to any man who grabs me!"
He froze. "Do you know what you are saying?" he asked softly, and Beth realized how he had interpreted her words.
Beth swallowed and pasted a bold smile on her face. "Of course I do." If she could make him believe this she'd be sent back to Miss Mallory's tomorrow. In one piece? she wondered.
One large hand gripped her chin as if to prevent her from turning away. His voice was hoarse. "How many have there been?"
Beth tossed her head saucily. "If you will give me a list of your conquests, my lord, I'll oblige you with a list of mine."
He released her so suddenly she staggered. "God!"
Beth turned and leaned on the balustrade, feeling sick. Could she go through with this? But only a few moments more and she would be on her way home. What could the duke do if his son simply refused? And he would refuse. No man would stand for this.
Her shoulders were caught and she was spun roughly to face him again.
"I don't believe you," he said.
"Why not?" It was an honest question. Beth needed to know why he doubted her if she was to act convincingly.
"You and Miss Mallory run a select ladies' seminary. You could hardly succeed in that with a smirched reputation."
Beth schooled her features to project insolence. "I am discreet, my lord."
It was hard to look bold. The man looked positively murderous. He was searching her face as if reading a book. Beth tried to look as an unrepentant exponent of free-love would. Had not Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter, Mary, recently eloped with Percy Shelley—and him a married man? The marquess need never know that this escapade had horrified both Miss Mallory and Beth.
Suddenly he pushed her hands behind her, took her two slender wrists in one hand, and held them there. Terror shot through her at this bondage, and she twisted wildly. She was shocked to find she could not break that grip.
"Don't struggle," he said coldly, "or I'll have to hurt you."
He wasn't going to hurt her? She'd thought he was going to beat her at the very least. His words might reassure, but his expression did not. Her heart was racing, and it was all she could do not to beg for mercy.
If he wasn't going to hurt her, what was he going to do? She supposed a bolder woman would know. Could he see her pounding heart which seemed to be somewhere up at the back of her throat? She longed to take her words back, but that would be to lose her chance of freedom. She could not stop the trembling, however, which was shaking her whole body.
He pressed his hard body against her, against her legs, her hips, her breasts... It was an intolerable invasion of privacy.
God in Heaven, was he going to rape her?
"Why are you so frightened?" he asked silkily. "You surely know I do not intend to hurt you, my dear."
"I am outraged," Beth forced out. "I am furious!"
His free hand came up and stroked her cheek. Beth flinched. "Why, I wonder? In what way were your other lovers so superior to me?"
Beth saw a weapon and grasped it. "Does your pride smart, my lord? They were men of sensitivity and intelligence, and they were my own choice."
"I'm sorry," he said with a lightness which did not hide the fury in his eyes. "By my code it is not intelligent or sensitive to take the virginity of a lady without marriage, yet one of those paragons must have done that."
"It was given my lord," she spat back. "Given. It was not taken, nor was it sold for a few guineas or even a wedding ring!"
He caught his breath in shock. His hand momentarily tightened on her wrists so that she could not stifle a cry of pain. The pressure immediately lessened, but she could feel in the air around them the intensity of his control and the peril of its loss.
What now? Beth knew something else was going to happen. Something terrible.
His face was a stony mask, but his eyes burned. He watched her fixedly as his hand slid down the side of her neck to her shoulder. She quivered. He moved his imprisoning body away and Beth took a deep breath of relief. Then his hand moved down to settle cupping her left breast.
Gasping, Beth started once more to struggle. Surely any woman, no matter how experienced, would struggle when so handled against her will. It was impossible to break his iron hold.
Beth remembered her purpose and stilled herself. Victory was so close, and she must not quail now. What was he watching for? What would betray her ignorance and virtue?
She felt his thumb begin to rub lightly over her breast, over her nipple. Even through her light stays was a shocking sensation. She closed her eyes before they betrayed her desperation. Extraordinary things were happening in her body.
Instinct told her she could improve her impression of boldness by responding, by kissing him perhaps. He would hate a display of wanton lust. But she simply could not, nor did she know how to do it right.
Instead she wanted to scream and fight. She wanted to escape. If she screamed, his parents would come and stop this torment but would that gain her end?
She forced herself to stay as still as her trembling body would allow as she racked her mind for a way to use this moment. To use it to give him such disgust of her that he would never consider marrying her, no matter what his parents wished. And quickly. She could not endure much more of this without betraying something.
She remembered, long ago, eavesdropping on a conversation between two of the middle-aged daily maids who cleaned the school. They'd been talking of their husbands and the marriage act, and though Beth had scarcely been able to understand them, the words came back now.
"He's a good enough man, my Jem, and lusty, but he does so like to make a meal of it, and there's times I'd just rather have it done and get me sleep." Now she had a glimmer of what "making a meal out of it" might mean.
Summoning up her courage, and with a prayer to whatever deity looked after poor beleaguered women, Beth opened her eyes and drawled, "Do you always make such a meal of it, my lord? Can't we just get on with it?"
He released her and stepped back. There was in his face all the revulsion for which she could wish.
They stared at each other in silence. His face looked white, but that could be the moonlight. Beth thought not. She wondered if she'd live to make the journey back to Miss Mallory's.
"Are you pregnant?" he asked bluntly.
"Of course not!"
"Can you be so sure?"
Beth clenched her teeth to stop them chattering. "Yes."
He took a visible breath. "Will you give me your word," he said carefully, "not to... not to indulge your passions before the wedding. I think there are enough bastards in this affair already."
"Really, my lord—"
"It's a little late for offended delicacy, Miss Armitage. I want your word." His lips tightened with distaste. "If your needs are so great they cannot be controlled, I will, with reluctance, accommodate you before the wedding. Any child you bear will be mine."
"You still wish to marry me?" asked Beth in horror.
"I never wished to marry you, Miss Armitage," he said. "Now I would give a fortune not to have to touch you. But I have no choice, for though I would give a fortune, I will not give up my heritage. My father will leave me only the property without the means to maintain it unless I marry you."
A great chill washed over Beth, and she wondered if she would faint. "So you are helpless, too," she whispered, wondering how she could undo what she had done.
"But not powerless. I will not acknowledge bastards, and I will not be cuckolded. I think I am able to keep you satisfied. I will beat you silly and lock you up with a keeper if you show any sign of going to another man. Do you understand me?"
Sick with horror at what she had done, Beth could only whisper, "Yes."
"Now get out of my sight." He turned away from her.
Beth stared at his back. "My—my lord...."
"If you value your skin, Miss Armitage, you will leave."
Beth looked at one tightly clenched fist on the cold stone balustrade and fled.
If the duke and duchess, sitting quietly reading, noticed anything untoward in Beth's appearance, they did not show it. When she said she wished to retire after a tiring day, the duchess rang the bell by her hand. One of the footmen came to escort her back to her rooms while another went to inform Redcliff she was needed.
Beth would have forestalled that if she had known how, but she simply endured the woman's ministrations. Then alone in the dark room she assessed the bleak situation.
The duke had said he could compel his son, but she had not really understood him. Now her fight for freedom had backfired disastrously. The marquess had not been insensitive to the awkwardness of her position and had been disposed to be kind. She had destroyed that and in a way that would shame her to her dying day.
How could she even face him tomorrow, never mind attempt to undo her work and find a basis for marriage between them?
* * *
The duchess watched the young woman leave the room. Miss Armitage had a great deal of control, but it would seem the time alone with Lucien had not gone well. She waited for her son to reappear so she could better judge what had occurred. Eventually she realized he was not coming.
"William, I worry about this plan of yours," she said softly.
The duke looked up from his book. "They will deal well enough in time."
"Did you look at her when she passed through this room, William?" she asked. "That poor girl looked bruised."
The duke stiffened. "You think he struck her?"
"No, of course not. Bruised in spirit. But will you care," she asked angrily, "if he beats her as long as she gives him sons?"
"I have assured Elizabeth of her welfare," said the duke, gazing at his wife. "I will not have her hurt."
"So what are you going to do if he mistreats her, William?" she challenged. "Forbid the marriage? You can't do that and still achieve your purpose. Or will you bring them together for occasional matings, carefully guarded like a dangerous stallion and a prize mare?"
"Yolande!"
She leapt to her feet and challenged him. "Tell me. What are you going to do?"
He rose too, color on his cheeks. "A fine opinion you have of your son, madam! From knowledge of the father, no doubt."
"His manners have been learned from you, Belcraven. And his cruelty."
"You dare accuse me of cruelty?"
She turned away and ran her hands through her hair.
To the duke she looked like the girl he had married and adored. Her figure was still shapely and in the candlelight her hair looked guinea-gold.
"Yes, cruel," she said softly, still facing away. "I never realized until you proposed this plan just how ruthless you could be. All these years I have thought you suffered," she said, turning to stare at him with tear-filled eyes. "Now I see you were merely obsessed with punishing me."
With that she fled the room. Too fast. Straight on the thought he realized how stupid it was to worry about the servants. Why should they not for once see the family as human beings, not remote demigods without emotions or flaws?
Punishing her? She thought he had been punishing her all these years? All these years of anguish and self-denial.
He remembered wanting something sharp to break their crystal prison. Was this what he wanted? To be hated? To see Yolande cry?
Seeking an outlet, the duke's anguish turned to rage and found a focus. It was all Arden's fault. Everything was Arden's fault, and now he could not even manage a simple dynastic marriage with grace.
The duke stalked out onto the terrace to castigate his heir but found the place empty in the cold moonlight. Control slowly returned. The girl had been tired after her journey and nervous in a strange place. If there had been trouble, it had doubtless been over nothing and soon smoothed over.
He returned to the drawing room and extinguished the candles one by one. In the moonlight he saw his wife's book where it had tumbled to the floor, and he picked it up, smoothing the pages. She had looked magnificent in her rage. He remembered those rages when they had been young. He felt remarkably young himself tonight.
Again he clamped control upon himself. Their crystal cage was protection as well as restraint. Like an old lion he did not think he could live without the bars.
* * *
The marquess had left the terrace by the steps which led down to the knot garden.
He was marrying a whore. He might as well marry Blanche. Much better, in fact. He liked Blanche, and she had her own impeccable sense of honor. What would the duke say if he told him about Elizabeth Armitage's promiscuity?
He wouldn't care as long as the children were legitimate. No, he wouldn't care as long as they appeared to be legitimate. The marquess only had to give them a name. As long as they were Elizabeth's brats they'd be worthy of the de Vaux inheritance.
He slammed his hand into a tree. It hurt, but he didn't care.
He strode over the rolling parkland, relishing his hate. Who did he hate the most? Elizabeth? No. He despised her, but she was just another puppet like himself. The duke? Oh yes, he could hate the duke, but, legitimate or not, the marquess was a de Vaux with all the pride of the line, and he understood the duke's motives. He, too, wanted his sons to carry on the line.
His mother? Yes, that was the person to hate. Her foolish lust had caused all this. But with the thought came such desolation he could have howled.
Fury and activity burnt away some of his pain, and he began to think as he retraced his steps to the house. Elizabeth Armitage was not unintelligent, and he had no evidence she was crazed with lust. He'd met women like that and she showed none of their concupiscence. She could probably control herself, and he would make sure she did. It offended him to think she was impure, but he could make sure it was no worse than that.
Seeking some kind of solace, he wandered towards the stables, his boyhood haunt. Every second he could steal away from his tutor had been spent here or out riding. It was dark and quiet, but the familiar pungent smell of horse and hay was there, and soft rustlings as the beasts moved in their sleep. He wandered around for a while.
He was about to leave when he heard a faint whistling. He followed the sound to a dark corner where a figure sat on a bale of hay, staring at the moon and whistling out of tune.
"What are you doing here?" he asked in a quiet voice.
The figure started and turned. The marquess recognized the boy he had found in London. Sparrow.
"Nothin', milord."
The boy was scared, and that seemed ridiculous. What was there between them except good luck? They were both misbegotten brats. He'd seen the boy only once after that night, given him his guinea in shillings, and arranged for him to become a stable boy.
Now he sat beside the lad on the bale. "Don't be afraid. If you want to spend your sleep time staring at the moon, it's no skin off my back. If I know Jarvis, he'll take it out of yours if you're slow in your work tomorrow."
"That he will, milord, but I don't need a lot of sleep mostly, and I like to look at the night and listen. It's different from Lunnon."
"I suppose it is. Do you like it here, then?"
"Yus, I does."
The marquess leaned back and looked at the night sky. "Those three stars over there," he said to the boy, "the ones in a straight line. That's Orion."
"That's what?"
"Orion. It's a name given to those particular stars. He was a mighty Greek hunter, but he chose the wrong prey and went after the Pleiades, so Artemis killed him and now he's three stars."
"Lord love us," murmured the boy. "Furriners are a funny lot and no mistake."
The marquess realized his musings were being taken seriously but only laughed. "Let that be a lesson to you, Sparrow, not to cross Greek women. If you can avoid Greeks altogether, it would be as well."
He was on Sparrow's ground here, though, and the boy caught the reference to card sharps and other thieves. "That's what me old friend Micky Rafferty used to say. 'Just learn to know a Greek when you see one.' You'd have liked Micky," he said wistfully. "He were transported for slumming." Suddenly he recollected who he was talking to. "Beggin' your pardon, milord."
"Oh, don't start that again, Sparrow," said the marquess wearily. "You know, I really can't keep calling you that. Don't you have a real name?"
"It is me real moniker."
"Well, what was your mother called?"
"Babs, milord."
The marquess looked at the boy. Even in the past few weeks his face had filled out, and in his sturdy clothes he looked quite promising. He deserved a better name than Sparrow.
"I know," he said. "We'll change the bird. How would you like to be called Robin?"
"Dunno. I'm used to Sparra."
"But it's not a name for a young man who's going up in the world, is it? Robin Babson. How's that?"
The boy's eyes seemed to shine like the stars in Orion. "Robin Babson? That'd be me?"
"If you want."
"Yus," said the boy fiercely.
"Good." The marquess rose and yawned. "If you like the country you can stay here."
"Forever?"
"Well, unless you want to go elsewhere when you're trained."
"If—if you don't mind, milord, I'd rather stay with you." The worship in the young voice was unmistakable.
The marquess considered his devotee ruefully. His attention had only been a whimsical kindness, a salve to his own wounded pride, but he couldn't hurt the child. "Work hard while we're here and you can help my groom, Dooley," he said.
"Thanks, milord," said the boy, bouncing up not out of manners but from sheer excitement. "Thanks."
"If you're going to look after my cattle, though, you need your sleep. Go to bed."
"Yus, sir." The boy ran off and then turned. "G'night."
"Good night, Robin," said the marquess softly in the dark.