Lady violet finds a brid.., p.2
Lady Violet Finds a Bridegroom, page 2
“Two, and now we are tired, and the afternoon ahead of us is long. Let us rest.” He rose and, despite the rocking of the coach, took only a moment to fetch pillows and blankets from the cedar-lined cupboards under the benches, and arrange our seats into a serviceable mattress.
“You seem familiar with the coach’s mechanisms,” I said, opening a blanket over my legs.
“I have my own vehicles,” he replied, passing me a pillow. “Not as commodious as your pleasure barge, but adequate.” He sat with his back against the rear wall, while he pulled off his boots and stockings.
I did likewise with my half boots, setting our footwear by the door. That Hugh and I were barefoot together set my imagination rollicking down all manner of idle pathways.
“I will be your pillow,” he said, making an offer into a statement of fact. “Put a pillow at your back and rest your head here.” He patted his muscular thigh. “You will be asleep before the first change.”
St. Sevier had apparently actually slept in moving coaches, as opposed to the recreational activity my husband had got up to with me. I did find that bracing my back against the wall of the coach and curling at something of an angle allowed me to stretch out my legs. The pillow at my back cushioned me from the swaying of the coach, and when I laid my head on St. Sevier’s lap, he stroked my hair.
“Lovely. Now close your eyes and go to sleep. If any highwaymen come along, I will wake you up so you can drive them off with your parasol and hatpin. This, I promise, my lady.”
His caresses were magically soothing and—alas for me—not the least bit seductive. Still, I enjoyed his touch, enjoyed the sense of caring and affection they conveyed, and I was soon drifting off. I could only wonder again if this scandalous informality wasn’t another stealthy approach to flirtation, or even—truly, my imagination had grown fanciful—to seduction.
I woke a good three changes later. When we reached our coaching inn that evening, Hugh escorted me to my room after supper and bowed over my hand with the same mannerly correctness he’d shown me on previous evenings.
“If I invited you in,” I asked, “would you join me?”
He kept hold of my hand, his grasp warm. “Of course, for some whist or another chapter of Walter Scott’s tales of adventure. If you are asking me whether I would seduce you in an English coaching inn, the noise of the common our music and the scent of the stable yard our perfume, I must wonder if you are not in the grip of a slight fever. So momentous an undertaking deserves every luxury and comfort two lovers can imagine.”
“Fortunately,” I replied, “I wasn’t asking you any such thing. Good night, St. Sevier, and thank you for another day of splendid companionship.”
He bowed. “Your servant, my lady.”
He moved off down the corridor, and I might have been imagining things—a slight fever indeed—but it appeared to me that St. Sevier was ever so subtly strutting for my benefit. I slept well that night and dreamed lovely naughty dreams, and St. Sevier was in every one of them.
Chapter Two
To keep my mind off strutting Frenchmen, and to better organize my thoughts as we approached the Scottish border, I reread the letters Fanny had sent me over the years. She loved her little corner of Scotland, which she described as in full view of the Highland Line, whatever that meant. I gathered her step-father’s property was within sight of some mountains, though situated on arable land.
“You are renewing your epistolary acquaintance with the bride?” St. Sevier asked as I finished one of the more recent letters.
“I am.” I tucked Fanny’s correspondence into a traveling satchel that I kept in the coach. “She has been an erratic but interesting correspondent. Two themes come through, the first being an abiding love of her homeland.”
“The second?”
“She has little patience for her step-father. I do wonder if she isn’t marrying simply to leave his authority.”
A light rain pattered on the coach roof, and I sent up a prayer that the shower would pass. The coachman and groom suffered when the going was bad, as did the horses. Coachmen were expected to maintain strict sobriety on the job—a rule most often honored in the breach—and cold and damp only gave them more frequent recourse to their flasks. Then too, relentless rain had involved me in a serious coaching mishap the previous year, and I had no wish to repeat that experience.
“Women have married to gain independence from parents since marriage was invented,” St. Sevier said. He hadn’t suggested any other naps, but he had acceded on a particularly bumpy stretch of road to sit with me on the forward-facing bench. He leaned forward now and extracted one of the heavy wool lap robes from beneath the opposite seat.
“That was certainly part of my motivation,” I said as St. Sevier unfolded the blanket over my knees. “Thank you. I was a trifle chilly.”
“And you ignored your own discomfort, because you are English and Lady Violet and all that other nonsense. Cuddle up, and you will be more comfortable still.” He looped an arm around my shoulders, and I was struck again by how often he couched invitations as statements or commands.
I tucked close and rested my head against his shoulder. “As much as Fanny has gushed about her garden and her views, and as effusively as she insisted that I attend her nuptials, I cannot recall her describing the groom.”
I had the oddest urge to stroke St. Sevier’s knee and thigh, to simply pet him. I did not yield to such foolishness for fear I’d get a lecture about English ineptitude at seduction, how a man prefers to be caressed, and the good God in heaven knew what else. Instead, I turned my face into St. Sevier’s muscular arm and took a sniff.
“You always smell good,” I said. “If I were marrying you, I might gush to a trusted confidante about how luscious I find your scent.”
A subtle change of posture came over my traveling companion, and though it was very bad of me, quite naughty indeed, I further tested my hypothesis.
“If you had become the object of my most secret desires,” I went on, “I would venture to describe your excellent physique, how stirring I found the sight of you in the saddle, the delight I took in your smile. Fanny hasn’t described her groom in any of those regards.”
“What has she said about him?”
I thought back over the letters and tried mentally to locate Fanny’s first mention of her intended. “His name is John. He has recited poetry to her—she likes that—and he makes her laugh. She doesn’t say if he’s young, old, short, bald… But then, Fanny loves poetry.”
“Describe your late spouse to me,” St. Sevier said, twitching the blanket up over my shoulder.
The coach swayed around a curve, and I was mashed agreeably closer to his side. “Freddie was a rake,” I said. “Handsome, hedonistic, unrepentantly self-indulgent, and while he had exquisite manners, and he wasn’t overtly unkind, he was impatient with my traditional views. I failed to give him children, and that is the one task required of a wife, so I daresay he was as disappointed in me as I was in him.”
And yet, from time to time, I missed him. Missed having somebody with whom I shared a few private jokes, missed his affectionate nature, missed the envious looks from young women whose husbands weren’t half so wealthy or charming.
“You do not tell me if he’s short, fat, bald, or American. Only that he was handsome, and he neglected you terribly. This is why French wives are so tolerant. Their husbands might stray, but they do not stray sufficiently to ever leave their ladies feeling neglected, and it is the same with the ladies. They have a discreet frolic, but they remain loyal and attentive to their husbands.”
“And would you stray, as a husband?”
The coach righted itself, and still St. Sevier remained silent.
“Hugh?”
He leaned near to murmur in my ear, though nobody could have possibly overheard him. “Do you know why I have not become your lover yet, Violet?”
“Yet?”
“I practice restraint because I am mad for you, and I insist that you be equally mad for me. I want you to long desperately for me and for pleasure in my arms, to desire me past reason, past your English dignity, past any memories that haunt you from your marriage. People who are mad for each other do not stray; they cannot even conceive of such a temptation. Does that answer your question?”
I disagreed with him. Freddie would have said, as St. Sevier had said, that he adored me. When Freddie had been with me, I’d felt cherished and desired, and I had, for a time, longed for the pleasures I’d shared with my husband. None of that had stopped Freddie from being liberal with his charms outside the marriage, and his attentions to his inamoratas had doubtless been equally adoring.
But St. Sevier was not Freddie, and it occurred to me that perhaps some lady had served my friend a disloyal turn, and that I was not the only traveler whose journey was weighed down by memories.
“You answered my question,” I said, “in so far as you might not stray during the honey month. Fanny also hasn’t mentioned a wedding journey.”
“Scottish customs are different, and wedding journeys cost money. Perhaps finances limit the happy couple’s options.”
“They shouldn’t. Fanny is an heiress through her mama. That’s part of the reason I expected her to marry years ago. Whoever has captured her heart has also added considerably to his own security. Might we fold out the benches again? I could use another nap.”
“That is enough, Violet.”
I patted Hugh’s thigh. “No need to growl.”
He said nothing, but I rejoiced to learn he was not nearly so in control of his urges as he’d have me think. I suspected he’d be a ferociously faithful and devoted husband. I, however, had had my fill of being a wife. On that point, I was quite certain.
“Scotland has a wealth of building stone,” Mr. Lachlan Leland said, leading me and St. Sevier across a soaring medieval great hall. “Anything built reasonably well here will still be around five centuries later. If we don’t like it, we simply add on to it. The library holds maps of Leland House, but I also assign a footman to the family wing when we have visitors. Niall won’t let you get lost.”
Mr. Leland was a surprisingly youthful redhead, broad of shoulder, and nearly as tall as St. Sevier. Fanny’s step-father exuded the brisk graciousness of the Scottish host as he led us through his impressive foyer.
My friend Fanny dwelled in a fanciful castle-cum-stately-home, and it struck me as odd that she’d never described such a splendid dwelling in her letters. Leland House sported turrets and crenellations sufficient for any fairy tale, and the main drive was lined on both sides with lime trees luminous with new leaves. The house itself, whitewashed from its foundation to the topmost flagstaff, looked magical for standing against a backdrop of steep hills and dark, majestic firs.
The medieval hall that served as its vast foyer was bristling with weaponry arranged in oddly artistic patterns. Wheels of knives and swords adorned the walls, firearms with fantastically long barrels hung above them. On either side of the hall’s enormous stone fireplace stood a suit of gleaming armor, and not the petite versions I’d seen in the south.
Ferocious-looking pikes and halberds, daggers and targes, and even a star-pattern of what looked to be antique pistols made an interesting first impression on me.
“The point,” said Mr. Leland, “was to reassure any who came here that allies of this family were well protected. Foes were warned to tread lightly, if they made it this far.” He smiled mischievously. “The lot of it requires a prodigious amount of dusting, if you want to know the truth.”
St. Sevier said little, but then, our journey had been long, and we were both likely eager for some solitude and a nap in a real bed.
Mr. Leland led us through his home, beneath fanciful baroque ceilings, across parquet marble floors, and along corridors lined with portraits—“That’s Betsy Leland, buried three husbands, each younger than the last,”—and an interesting assortment of objets d’art. Cloisonné snuffboxes, gilt-framed miniatures, jeweled music boxes, intricately enameled eggs, and whimsical ivory netsukes were displayed at tastefully distant intervals.
Somebody, maybe generations of somebodies, had loved this house and filled it with treasures, and yet, Fanny was apparently eager to leave this place.
“Our housekeeper has put you in the suite fitted out for the previous owner’s parents,” Mr. Leland said. “You share a sitting room, and your balcony has a wonderful view of the mountains.” He opened a door carved with enormous thistles and some prancing beast I would examine later.
“Lady Violet, your effects will be put in the blue bedroom,” he went on, gesturing to a door on the left. “Monsieur St. Sevier, we hope you will be comfortable in the—”
“Violet!” Fanny emerged from the blue bedroom and barreled into my arms. “Violet, you came, you came. I am so glad you came.”
My first impression was one of great joy, for Fanny had been a friend at a time when friendships had been few and dear, and she had done her part to maintain the friendship over a great distance. I had been through much since she and I had last embraced. To hug somebody who’d been a familiar before marriage and widowhood had changed me was precious.
My second impression was that Fanny needed a few square meals. She’d been a robust girl, but the woman who hugged me so enthusiastically was a slender little creature of bones and angles. With her strawberry-blond hair and great blue eyes, she looked like an escaped denizen of a fairy mound.
“And this,” Fanny said, stepping back and curtseying, “must be Dr. St. Sevier. Monsieur, I cannot thank you enough for safely delivering my dear friend to me. I hope you will enjoy your stay with us and that you and Lady Violet will be in no hurry to leave.”
St. Sevier bowed over her hand and offered one of his signature charming smiles. “At present, Miss MacPherson, I am so glad to be free of her ladyship’s coach that you will have trouble convincing me to ever sit upon its benches again.”
A procession of porters brought up our trunks, and a kilted footman carried in a tray.
“I will send your maid to you when you have had a chance to do justice to the tray,” Fanny said. “Come along, Lachlan. Our guests are weary, and we will see them at supper. Violet, we have much to discuss. Much, though it will keep until you are feeling more the thing.”
Just like that, St. Sevier and I were alone in our shared sitting room.
“Miss MacPherson is not well,” St. Sevier said, ambling over to the tray. “Or she has recently been unwell. The shadows beneath her eyes, the lack of luster to her skin and hair. Was she always so petite?”
“No. She was nicely rounded, to use genteel parlance.”
If St. Sevier was troubled that we’d been given bedrooms that all but adjoined, he showed no sign of it. He poured a cup of steaming tea, added a drizzle of honey and a dollop of what looked like cream, then put a square of shortbread on the saucer and held it out to me.
“You have shadows beneath your eyes too, Violet. One doesn’t drink as much as one should when traveling. Soldiers on the march make the same mistake.”
The tea was perfect, and that St. Sevier would fix it for me as opposed to waiting for me to pour out and serve him, was a precious consideration. He made himself a cup—black—and took two pieces of shortbread out to a balcony that ran the length of the sitting room.
“What do you suppose is out there?” I asked, joining him at the railing. No rain fell, but the day was so damp with fog and mist that it might as well have been raining. The back garden fell away down a hill to a stand of tall firs that formed a dark green wall. The hill was contoured such that the garden sloped gently to a high stone wall, and beyond that—judging from the trees—the declivity became much steeper. Despite the damp, the cool air felt refreshing, particularly when I held a hot cup of tea.
“The Highland Line,” Hugh said, gesturing with his tea cup, “doubtless runs along that horizon. This house was probably originally fortified to defend against raiders swarming down from the hills to loot the prosperous farms and villages in the valley. Back inside with you, Violet. I can’t have you getting an ague on the eve of your friend’s wedding.”
I trundled into the sitting room, which was somebody’s aesthetic tribute to a singular plaid. The pattern managed to be both somber and busy, including dark blue, green, and black with dashes of orange, yellow, and white. The rug, curtains, and sofa pillows were all in the same design, while the furniture itself had been spared, though I recalled that the footman’s kilt had been of the same hues.
“What do you suppose is amiss with Fanny?” I felt comfortable asking because she was not Hugh’s patient.
“Her hand was quite cold,” he said, “and her fingernails looked thin and brittle. At a guess, I’d say she suffers a lack of adequate blood. I do not like this house.”
St. Sevier was usually quite the diplomat, unless provoked by another’s rudeness. He was tired, though, and far from even his English home.
“Why not?”
“Your friend and her step-father live here, amid all this wealth and tradition, and she is soon to leave this place. This is exactly why the French did away with their aristocracy, or tried to. What is the point of treasuring guns that do not fire and swords gone dull? What is the point of housing two people in an edifice of this size?”
I refilled his empty tea cup and added a square of some blond, sugary confection. “My late husband agreed with you. He thought allowing a bunch of wealthy, self-interested, in-bred toffs to run the country for their own further enrichment was stupid. Freddie believed that greed ultimately destroyed France, and in another sense, Napoleon’s greed destroyed her all over again.”
St. Sevier bit into the sweet. “You think Frenchmen are greedy?”
The French had restored their monarchy and aristocracy upon the Corsican’s defeat, but I was abruptly too tired for philosophy.
“Of course not, but aristocrats as a class might be. My husband was greedy when it came to his pleasures. He was half Welsh and half English. Perhaps covetousness is a nationality of its own. Would you mind undoing my dress?”
