The black words stood out accusingly from the crisp white paper she had used. 7. No mistresses. Nev remembered his fingertips burning on Amy’s shoulder as he watched Miss Brown. He felt overheated. “You saw me at Vauxhall, didn’t you?”
“I told you, I changed my mind!” She would not meet his eyes. “You mustn’t suppose that I think I have bought you, and will try to control your every movement. I know it’s nothing to do with me if I-if you occasionally find yourself in need of more than I can provide.” Her voice trembled a little. “So long as you’re discreet and don’t give me the pox.”
He had a sudden image of Miss Brown, raving, her pretty features rotting away. He shuddered. It didn’t matter; he had known in the back of his mind that he would have to give Amy her congé anyway. She was too expensive.
“I promise you”-he drew a deep breath and didn’t think about Amy-“I promise you that the connection you witnessed will be at an end immediately, and that your sensibilities will never hereafter be wounded by hearing of another.”
Her eyes flew to his face. Then she smiled, shyly. “It would, perhaps, be nobler to insist on letting you go your own way, but I won’t. You are very generous. Thank you.”
He knew very well he wasn’t generous in the least. But he let himself smile back and say with mock solemnity, “No mistresses.”
By rights, Penelope ought to have been hoping her parents would take a dislike to Lord Bedlow at dinner; then she could say that she had done her best and be free of the whole matter. But when he showed up with his cinnamon hair combed rigidly into place and a nervous smile on his lips, she felt it would be hideously unjust if they rejected him. Couldn’t they see he was trying?
She found herself relieved and a little disconcerted when both her parents showed signs of succumbing to his charm. He complimented the food, Mrs. Brown’s embarrassingly large pearls, and Penelope’s gown-all with apparent sincerity.
When her father, who did not drink, offered to have a bottle of claret opened, Penelope held her breath. One of the things her father had never forgiven Edward for was that he had once, years ago, got himself foxed at a Brown Jug Brewery Christmas party. Mr. Brown had made some terrible remarks about Papists. And Penelope knew that Lord Bedlow drank.
To her surprise, the earl hesitated for only a moment before saying, “No, thank you.” Mr. Brown commended him and launched into one of his sermons on the value of sobriety. And her father owned a brewery! But Lord Bedlow didn’t even point out the inconsistency. Penelope flushed in mortification and sighed in relief all at once.
She was on tenterhooks for the half hour the gentlemen remained at table with their watered-down wine. She played snatches of Scotch airs on the piano and replied to her mother’s conversation in monosyllables.
She heard her father’s uproarious laughter first. Then she caught the sound of footsteps, and they entered the room, her father’s arm slung about Lord Bedlow’s taller shoulders.
“That’s a good one! Mrs. Brown, do you know what his lordship said when I told him how many obscure musical instruments Penny would insist on bringing with her to his house? ‘In for a Penny, in for a pound,’ he says!” Mr. Brown laughed again.
Penelope flushed. She knew it was contrary, but the more her parents were won over, the more she resented how easily they were taken in. It was so obvious that a gentleman like Lord Bedlow would not have found anything to admire in a prosaic parvenue like her if he had not needed her money, or anything to flatter in her parents-so patently clear that he was too good for them, and too good for her.
But Lord Bedlow, though he had to slouch to fit under Mr. Brown’s arm, just smiled sheepishly at her and winked. If he was disgusted, he hid it well.
It was as though he had the Midas touch. He went straight to her mother’s wall of sentimental engravings and old book illustrations in gilt frames, and pointed to a garishly colored old engraving of Venice that her mother loved. “It’s the Bridge of Sighs! Have you been to Venice, Miss Brown?”
“No,” Penelope said. “I have never been out of England.”
Mrs. Brown smiled. “Oh, those old pictures are all mine. Penny is much too elegant for such trifles! I hope very much to go to Venice with Mr. Brown someday.”
“Oh, you must!” Lord Bedlow said. “It’s splendid! I wish the gondoliers still sang Tasso, but it looks just the same as always! My grandfather bought some sketches when he was there half a century ago, you know, and a Canaletto, and-”
A familiar gleam came into Mrs. Brown’s eye. “Oh, yes, your grandfather’s art collection is very fine, isn’t it?”
Lord Bedlow shrugged. “I’ve been told it is. People come rather often to view it.”
Mrs. Brown looked anxious. “You haven’t sold any of it, have you?”
Penelope winced at her mother’s lack of tact, but Lord Bedlow did not seem to take offense. “No. Fortunately my father allowed all of it to remain entailed, or I might have been tempted. I had offers from all over the country for the Holbein.”
Lord Bedlow could not have known that those words would advance his suit more than any amount of touching rhetoric. Mrs. Brown’s eyes took on an almost fanatical glow. “You have a Holbein?”
Lord Bedlow nodded. “There are over a hundred paintings. You ought to come out for a few days and look it over. They’re all over the house, and I think there are some boxes of sketches and things in the attic that no one’s looked at in years.”
Penelope grinned outright at the expression on her mother’s face-the face of a woman trying to remain honest when offered an overwhelming bribe.
Mrs. Brown returned to a safer subject. “So Venice really looks like it does in the paintings?”
“Exactly like. It is just as Childe Harold says, you know: ‘I saw from out the wave her structures rise / As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand…’”
Penelope was torn between laughing and gaping in astonishment. The Midas Touch indeed-her mother adored that passage.
“Really?” Mrs. Brown breathed.
“Oh, yes. I only wish the fourth canto had been published when Percy and Thirkell and I went, so that we might have read it to each other in St. Mark’s Square.”
“Will you read it to me?” Mrs. Brown asked. “Poetry isn’t the same unless you can hear it aloud, I find. But Mr. Brown doesn’t care for poetry, and Penny turns up her nose at Byron-”
Lord Bedlow shot a nervous glance at Penelope.
Penelope rolled her eyes. “Naturally I don’t insist that we agree on everything. If I did, it would only be an incentive to falsehood.”
He didn’t answer that; instead he said to Mrs. Brown, “Sometimes I read poetry aloud to myself, if there’s nobody about. But it does somewhat puzzle the servants, I find.” He gave her a smile that was like candlelight-bright yet somehow soft and friendly-and Penelope, for one insane moment, was jealous of her mother.
Mrs. Brown was clearly charmed-how could she help it? “I do that too. But you know-I haven’t got the voice for it, not really.”
“What do you mean?” Lord Bedlow sounded genuinely puzzled, and if Penelope hadn’t already been thinking of kissing him, she would have for that. “You have a perfectly pleasant voice.”
“Well,” Mrs. Brown said, nonplussed, “thank you, but what I mean is, it don’t sound quite like Lord Byron intended it, do it? With my accent, I mean. It doesn’t flow all crisp consonants and perfect vowels like yours.”
Lord Bedlow looked self-conscious. “All right. I’ll read you the fourth canto, but only if you promise to read me something by Mr. Keats.”
Penelope considered Keats a radical hothead. And she doubted the poet would be flattered by the notion that his verse might be best appreciated by hearing it read in Mrs. Brown’s motherly Cockney voice. But Mrs. Brown was flattered, so Penelope could not help being pleased.
Mrs. Brown fetched out the volume of Lord Byron, and Penelope prepared to feign interest; but she found herself rapidly enthralled. Lord Bedlow was a sensitive and engaging reader, and, what made him all the more dangerously appealing, it was evident that he read so well because he loved to do it-because he loved the poetry and wanted to share it. She was reminded disloyally of Edward, who was a charming conversationalist but could not read aloud at all. He had no gift for mimicry; he read everything as if it were a treatise on philosophy. Penelope had always thought it rather sweet. But she heard the music in Lord Bedlow’s voice, and something inside her echoed it.
No sooner had he finished than she impulsively asked, “Do you sing?” She was sure he must.
“What about Keats?”
She was impressed that he remembered and ashamed that she had forgotten. “Oh, of course, Mama-”
Mrs. Brown’s knowing smile made Penelope blush. “No, no, you children sing. I would love to hear that. Lord Bedlow can listen to me butcher the English language another time.”
Nev thought he had been doing all right; the Browns were less intimidating than he had expected and less different from himself. But Miss Brown had barely spoken all evening, and it worried him. So he was inordinately relieved when she asked if he sang-and asked with real interest. And he was, he admitted to himself, very eager to hear her sing.
She rose and went to the piano. She looked perfectly composed, but her movements were a little clumsy. She glanced at him while she was getting out the music and blushed when their eyes met. He smiled and went to her side.
She was leafing through Arne’s settings of Shakespearean songs and stopped at “Under the Greenwood Tree,” glancing up at him for approval. He nodded, though the choice was an awkward one; it was a song he had sung often with Amy. She played the opening notes and began to sing in a clear, sweet contralto. After a few bars he joined in.
She was no opera singer, of course-neither was he. But, Nev realized, their voices fit together somehow. They seemed instinctively to know when to rise and when to fall in harmony, when to soften and when to strengthen. When the duet was over, he found himself wanting to sing another, and another. Instead he shook himself and turned to her parents. “I don’t wish to overstay my welcome. I thank you for a very pleasant evening.”
Mrs. Brown smiled at him and opened her mouth, but she was forestalled by Mr. Brown, who cleared his throat. “If you’d wait in the other room for a moment, my lord, I’d be much obliged to you.”
He was taken aback, and Miss Brown said, “Papa, you can’t mean to ask the earl-”
But it was Nev’s role tonight to be obliging, so he said, “It’s no bother, honestly,” and let a servant show him into a room across the hall, where half a dozen fine wax candles were already lit. Nev looked at that sign of wealth and plenty, and prayed he had been charming and obliging enough. Or had he been too charming and obliging? What if they all thought him an even more inconsequential fellow than before?
He had begun to fidget when Miss Brown came in, sooner than he expected. He stood at once, waiting for her parents to follow her, but instead she was accompanied by a maid who took up a seat in the far corner of the room. Miss Brown came up to him, looking very awkward and pressing her hands together.
“If it’s a no,” he said, “just tell me straight out.”
She glanced up at him. “It isn’t a no.” He couldn’t tell whether she was pleased. “You have my father’s leave to purchase a license.”
He knew he should thank her and go before any of them could change their minds. “Are you quite sure? If you wish, I can wait a few days before I send the notice to the Gazette.”
She hesitated, but she shook her head. “I’m sure. Besides, the sooner you announce our engagement the better. Once the word is out, your creditors will stop hounding you.”
That would be nice for his family. “Thank you.”
She tried to smile. “You were very kind to my parents-thank you.”
“I like them.” It would horrify his mother, but it was the truth. He wasn’t sure she believed him, but her smile was real this time.
An hour after Nev announced his engagement to his family, his mother was still crying in her room. At last Louisa came soberly down the stairs.
“Has she turned off the waterworks yet?”
Louisa shook her head. “She blames herself, Nate. She thinks if she had been able to control Papa, you wouldn’t have to make this tragic sacrifice.” She looked at him sorrowfully. “You should have let me do it, Nate. I was prepared.”
“Louisa, don’t be a goose. We aren’t living in a Minerva Press novel. I’m just glad you gave me the idea. I might not have thought of Miss Brown otherwise.”
Her eyes flew wide. “I gave you the idea? Oh, my wretched, wretched tongue! Oh, poor Nate!” She flung herself on him.
“Don’t take on so.” He tried to fend her off. “I daresay you’ll like Miss Brown.”
“Never!” Louisa said fiercely. “I shall detest her eternally!”
“You won’t. Wait till you meet her. She likes music.”
“Oh, Nate, you’re so brave!”
He threw up his hands and left the house.
Nev would have preferred to take a few days to screw his courage to the sticking point before going to see Amy. But he had sent the notice to the Gazette, and a gentleman did not let a woman find out a thing like that from the Gazette.
He walked slowly up the stairs to Amy’s house, as he had hundreds of times. He didn’t even make it all the way to the top before the door opened and Amy looked out. He looked at her, but he didn’t see her brown eyes or the mischievous tilt of her mouth or even the small, creamy breasts that curved into the clean white muslin of her frock. He didn’t remember the year of laughter and sex and casual affection they had shared. He looked at Amy and all he could see were the thousands of pounds she had cost.
She smiled. “Hullo, Nev. ”
He tried to smile back, but he felt a little sick. “Hello, Amy.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “I was about to have lunch. Will you join me, or would you rather go straight to bed?”
“Actually, I-I need to talk to you.”
She frowned, but she took him into her salon and sat down on the settee, leaving plenty of room for him. He took a chair. Her face changed a little, but she didn’t say anything.
“I reckon you’ve heard my father left us just about ruined.”
She nodded. “I’d heard, but I hoped the rumors were exaggerated.” She paused and looked down. “ Nev, my friends would laugh at me if they heard this, but-I’ve been saving. I could loan you as much as five hundred pounds, if you needed it.”
“I owe tens of thousands.”
“Oh.”
“That’s not the problem.” He waved his hands about, as if maybe they could say this for him. They couldn’t. “I’m fixing that. That’s what I came here to tell you. Amy, I-I’m getting married.”
For a second her face was blank-and then, to his surprise, it flooded with relief. “Oh, Nev! You frightened me for nothing! Did you think I would scream or throw the gravy boat at your head?” She smiled at him. “I don’t say I won’t be sorry not to have you all to myself anymore, but I know I’m spoiled. Don’t worry about it any longer.”
Nev knew it was unreasonable and unfair, but he felt an instinctive revulsion, a delicacy he would have sworn he did not possess, at the idea of leaving Miss Brown quietly sleeping at home and sneaking off to see Amy. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Amy. I can’t do that. This is good-bye.”
She stared at him. “Why?”
He couldn’t tell her she was too expensive. So he told her the other reason. “I promised her. No mistresses.”
Amy’s eyes narrowed. “She made you promise that, did she? The slave trade’s been abolished, or hadn’t you heard? She’s bought your title, Nev, but she doesn’t own you. What’s it to her if you get a bit on the side?”
“That’s not fair, Amy. The poor girl’s getting a bad enough bargain.”
Amy raised her eyebrows. “Oh, is she? Who is it?”
Nev looked away. “Miss Brown.”
He heard Amy draw in a sharp breath. “Oh. Well, I said she was your type, didn’t I?”
Nev nodded.
“I daresay she’s thrilled. A brewer’s daughter generally has to settle for the old, ugly earls, never mind how pretty she is, and instead she gets you, handsome and young and charming and foolish enough to believe you’re a bad bargain.”
Nev looked up at Amy, remembering her wistfulness when she’d said Wouldn’t me mum have liked to lord it in a fine house in Russell Square? It was in her voice again. He didn’t understand it at first, but she thought he had, and she answered the question she thought he was asking.
“No, I never thought for a second you’d marry me, Nev. I wasn’t dropped on my head as a baby. But a girl can’t stop herself wishing it every so often, can she?” She smiled ruefully at him. “Even if you wanted me, I wouldn’t have you now you’re penniless. Don’t worry about me, Nev. I’ll be fine. I do hope you’ll be happy.”
“I hope so too.” Nev was relieved that the awkwardness seemed to be over. “Listen, Amy, I wanted to buy you a pretty diamond bracelet or something for a good-bye present, but I thought-well, I thought maybe the money would be more useful. Your rent’s paid to the end of the quarter, and-I brought you a hundred and fifty pounds.”
She looked at the money as he counted it out of his pocket. “How very practical of you,” she said with a smile. “I suppose you’ve learned this week how hard it is to sell pretty diamond bracelets for what you paid for them. Thank you, Nev. ”
He smiled back at her.
“Did her father give you an advance?”
He shook his head. “I sold Tristram.”
Her mouth flew open. “Oh, Nev! Not Tristram! He was your favorite horse!”
“Second favorite. I kept Palomides.”
She sighed. “I can’t believe you sold Tristram to pay my rent. But I suppose you couldn’t soil the future Countess of Bedlow by using her money to pay off a girl like me.” She looked at him. “I did make you happy, Nev, didn’t I?”
He nodded.
She swallowed hard. “Well, thank you, Nev. It’s been a good year. Would you like to stay to lunch?”
He shook his head.
She stood and held out her hand-not palm-down to be kissed, but sideways to be shaken, just as Mr. Brown had at the conclusion of their negotiations. He shook her hand; she showed him to the door. “Good-bye, Nev. Look me up if you change your mind.”
Thirkell beamed. “Congratulations! Bring on the champagne! Who’s the lucky girl?”
“No champagne,” Nev said.
Percy looked as if he understood a little better. “An heiress?”
Nev nodded. “Miss Brown.”
“Brandy, then.” Percy strode to the decanter and took out the stopper. Nev could smell the brandy, and he wanted it; he wanted something that would burn as it went down, burn away the worry and the confusion and the sad look on Amy’s face. It smelled like a sickly sweet promise of heaven.
“No brandy either,” he said with difficulty.
Percy raised his eyebrows. “ Nev, you’ve done nothing but mope since Lord Bedlow died. You’re wound tight as a spring, and you need to relax. Now have a glass of brandy and then we’ll go out and have some fun, forget about all this for a few hours, and in the morning things won’t seem so bad.”
Percy was right, Nev thought. What could it hurt? A few glasses of brandy, a few games of cards, a few hours when he wasn’t thinking about Louisa turning shabby-genteel or the look of politely hidden disapproval on Miss Brown’s face. He deserved that, didn’t he, after the past few weeks? Percy was already pouring the glass; Nev held out his hand.
“Yes, come on, Nev,” Thirkell said. “Perhaps you’ll have a run of luck and you can call the whole thing off!”
Nev plucked the decanter out of Percy’s hand and stoppered it. “Yes.” He hardly recognized his own voice. “I suppose that’s what my father kept telling himself too.”
Percy gave Thirkell a sharp glance. “Thirkell didn’t mean that, Nev. Stop being so melodramatic. A glass of brandy won’t send you to the graveyard. Now drink it, and then we’ll go to the theater and have a good time. We’ll even go the opera if you like.”
“I sold the box,” Nev said. “All of them.”
Percy sighed. “All right, we’ll stand in the pit. Amy won’t mind. You’ll be married soon enough, and then you can buy them all back.”
Nev was suddenly furious. “No. I can’t. And I gave Amy her congé.”
Thirkell gaped. “You did what? Nev, how could you?”
“I’m getting married!”
Percy gave Nev the severe look that meant he was about to read Nev a lecture in which common sense featured prominently. It reminded him of Miss Brown a little. “It’s not as if it’s a love match, Nev. You’re mad about Amy. You deserve to keep something fun in your life. I think sobriety has unbalanced your brain. Pan métron áriston, you know.”
“Don’t quote Greek at me!” Moderation in all things-that was exactly what Nev was trying to do. He was trying to curb the excess that had led his father to ruin. “And anyway, Miss Brown asked me to be faithful. What was I to say? ‘Thank you for your money and your future, but I’ll do as I please’?”
Percy’s jaw set. “How dare she? Trying to get you under the cat’s paw already and not even married! What business is it of hers if you keep a mistress? She’ll be Lady Bedlow, isn’t that what she wants? That’s the problem with Cits, they think everything can be bought, even affection-”
Nev snatched the glass of brandy out of Percy’s hand and splashed the liquor into the fire, aware that it had been expensive and feeling guilty and furious. Moderation had never been his forte. “Stop it. That’s not fair. She’s-” He stopped. He did not know how to explain Miss Brown.
Besides, part of him was touched by Percy’s anger on his behalf. And, worse still, there was a small shameful part of him that agreed with Percy. He had looked at Miss Brown’s neat little list and thought, Merchant. In a minute he would give in; in a minute he would apologize and let Percy pour another glass.
Nev looked at his two oldest friends and hated his father. But that wasn’t fair either. It was his own fault, his fault for being too weak. His fault for wanting that glass of brandy and a night at the theater with Amy more than anything else in the world.
He had lived like this for the past six years: drinking the night away with Percy and Thirkell at a never-ending stream of gaming hells and Cyprian’s Balls, curricle-racing, attending the theater, spending as little time as possible at Loweston except when the three of them had a mind to do a little fishing. Just like his father. He could scarcely imagine any other way of living. That was why he had to do this. “I think that you two need to leave.”
Percy threw up his hands. “Fine. We’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe by then you’ll have come to your senses and begged Amy to take you back.”
“No. I-oh, Christ.” Nev ’s voice was still firm, but on the inside he could feel himself cracking. He was weak and miserable and nothing could ever make this right, but he had to do it. “Percy, Thirkell, you can’t come back. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”
“What-ever?” Thirkell asked.
Nev couldn’t look at his round, hurt face. Instead he thought about Miss Brown, clutching her list. “I’m sorry, Thirkell, but I’ve got responsibilities now. I’m going to-I’m going to have a wife. I can’t live like a bachelor anymore.”
Percy folded his arms. “So you’re going to give us up just like you’ve given up claret?”
“I don’t want to. But I can. What I can’t do is keep you and still do what I have to do.”
“ Nev -” Thirkell sounded bewildered.
“I’m not Nev anymore, Thirkell,” Nev snapped. “I’m Lord Bedlow now.”
Percy’s eyes flashed. “And shall we call you ‘my lord’ now? We’ve been calling you Nev your whole life! For God’s sake-”
“I’m sorry,” Nev said again, knowing it wasn’t enough. “But I’ve got to be respectable now, and I can’t do that with you two.”
“Fine. If we’re not good enough to associate with the Earl of Bedlow, we’ll take ourselves off.” Percy turned to go, but Thirkell just stood there, looking like a kicked puppy. “Come along, Thirkell,” Percy said gently. Thirkell hesitated, but Percy nodded his head at the door, and he went. Percy gave Nev a deep, ironical bow and slammed the door behind them.
Nev fell into a chair and stared longingly at the decanter.
“Here, put a forget-me-not there, just above her ear.” Mrs. Brown pointed.
“Mama, I’m already wearing about fifty forget-me-nots.”
“And you look lovely! Lord Bedlow won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”
“Yes, because he will be staring at all the forget-me-nots in horrified fascination.”
Mrs. Brown laughed. “I don’t think so. Blue is a good color for you.”
Penelope smiled at her mother. “Oh, you think everything is a good color for me.”
“That’s because everything is,” Mrs. Brown said. Penelope felt tears pricking at her eyes, but she forced them back.
As the wedding had neared over the last three weeks, she had become more and more certain she was making a terrible mistake; she couldn’t have explained what streak of stubborn perversity kept her clinging to her bad decision. She’d even started again with the nervous fits she’d thought were left behind in the schoolroom: as the wedding approached, she woke each day with her stomach tangled and sick, and spent breakfast fighting not to vomit in the eggs.
It had been bad enough her first year at Miss Mardling’s, when Penelope had no idea what was wrong with her and feared an exotic illness. Her roommates, of course, had suspected her of a shocking illicit pregnancy, and spread the rumor all over the school. The sick feeling had faded after a few weeks, and only when it had started up again the first day of every term, regular as clockwork, had she realized it was nerves.
It was worse now. Now she had to hide it from her mother’s watchful eye, or the wedding might still be canceled.
“Let us hope Lord Bedlow agrees with you.”
Mrs. Brown tweaked one of Penelope’s silk forget-me-nots. “He will. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
Penelope knew what her mother must mean, but she wanted to ask anyway, so she would know that at least one person thought she hadn’t been imagining those looks, the few times she’d seen her betrothed since that dinner with her parents-the looks that said there was hope, that he didn’t just think of her as the strip of brown paper that held together a stack of freshly minted banknotes.
Mrs. Brown placed one last flower in Penelope’s hair and stepped back with a satisfied air. “Perfect. Let me fetch my pearl earrings.” She bustled out the door.
A minute later, one of the footmen poked his head in. “This came for you, miss. We’ve opened it, but where do you want it?” He pushed the door open wider and Penelope could see the crate in his arms. On the side it read DUPRÈS ET FILS. Below, in smaller letters, was GRAVURES, AQUARELLES, DESSEINS, LITHOGRAPHIES, &C. 22 RUE DE RIVOLI, PARIS.
Paris. Her heart began to pound. Edward had sent one letter after he got the news, pleading with her to change her mind, reminding her of all their plans. Her reply had been too short-she didn’t know how to explain herself, or what to say but no, she would not be changing her mind. He hadn’t written again. “Just set it on the floor by the bed.”
The second he was out the door she was kneeling by the crate-but carefully. She didn’t want to rip her dress, even though Molly, her lady’s maid, had said it would be good luck. With hands that shook a little, she took out one of the flat packages, ripping away the careful wrapping to reveal the expected picture frame. She turned it over, saw the engraving-and froze.
It was Plate 2 of Wm. Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode series.
Penelope opened the other five packages, but she knew already what they would contain. Plate 1, of course-“The Marriage Settlement”-showed Lord Squanderfield displaying his mortgages and his ancient family tree to the stooped, myopic merchant while their two bored children sat in the corner, the young nobleman preening in the mirror and the merchant’s daughter flirting with another man. The next three plates showed in lovingly gruesome detail the young couple’s idle, unchaste life, chiefly spent apart from each other.
In the fifth plate the bride knelt beside her dying husband as her lover escaped out the window, leaving his bloody sword behind him. In Plate 6-Penelope felt sick-in Plate 6 the widow, back in her father’s house, had taken an overdose of laudanum on hearing of her lover’s execution. A nurse held her syphilitic child as the merchant himself slipped the gold ring off his dying daughter’s finger with an appraising eye.
Penelope picked up the neatly written note in the bottom of the crate and read it. Lady Bedlow-I hope you will accept this small token of my esteem on the occasion of your marriage. I saw them and thought of you at once. I hope you will be very happy as a countess. Fondest regards, Edward Macaulay.
The door opened, and Penelope crumpled the paper in her fist.
“Penny, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Brown asked in dismay.
Penelope straightened. “It’s nothing, Mama.” Her voice quavered. “Only a tasteless joke. A wedding present, you see.”
Mrs. Brown came closer. “Hogarth!” Then she saw which engravings they were. Her smile faded. “Who sent those to you?”
“I don’t know,” Penelope lied. “There was no note.”
“What kind of devil would do such a thing? It’s bad luck! And on your wedding day too.”
“Don’t be superstitious, Mama.”
Mrs. Brown knotted her fingers together. “But-but who could hate you so much?”
Penelope would not cry. “It’s just someone’s idea of a joke,” she repeated mechanically.
Mrs. Brown’s gaze lingered on the crate, clearly marked PARIS. Her eyes narrowed, but she made no comment. “Here, come help me choose my pelisse. I bought some new ones.”
“Won’t we be late?”
Mrs. Brown looked at the clock. “We have time. Come on. After today, there will be no one to laugh and tell me they become me abominably.”
Penelope smiled around the lump in her throat. “All right, Mama. You go on. I’ll be there in a moment.”
The minister’s voice droned on and on. Nev looked at his bride. She looked adorable-her shining brown hair was braided and curled and adorned with about fifty silk forget-me-nots that fluttered and bobbed with every movement of her head. Her light-blue muslin dress was embroidered with more of the small flowers. Yes, she looked adorable-but she had been crying. Nev was sure of it. He had not the faintest idea what to do.
This was not how he had imagined his wedding. Not that he sat around dreaming of it like a girl; but yes, he’d thought of it once or twice, and he’d always planned a last glorious night of bachelor debauchery, a bride with an indistinct but joyful countenance, and-and Percy or Thirkell at his side, or the two of them grinning at him from the front row and miming toasts and the key turning in a leg shackle.
Instead, he had spent his last night of freedom sitting in his rooms, sober as a judge, gazing at the empty decanter and thinking about Amy. He had gone to bed early. Now, his friends weren’t in the church at all, his mother was sobbing brokenheartedly, and his sister was sitting furiously straight and refusing to look at him. And his bride had been crying.
He couldn’t blame her. Tomorrow night they would be at Loweston. Loweston doesn’t look quite the same anymore.
Trapped in the country on a run-down estate. Far away from London and the comfortable life she knew. Without her friends. About to bed a stranger. Nev gulped.
Poor Miss Brown must be terrified.
“Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him speak now or forever hold his peace,” the minister finally intoned. Nev felt a flash of panic. He glanced suspiciously at his mother, but she showed no signs of emerging from her handkerchief with an impediment.
Nev was so relieved that when the minister said “forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her,” he winked at Miss Brown. No mistresses, he mouthed. Preoccupied with the sudden blossoming of a smile on her face, he almost missed his cue to say, “I will.”
“Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
Miss Brown turned to look at him, her smile still in her eyes. Her clear voice reached effortlessly to the far corners of the church. “I will.”
Nev couldn’t explain why he suddenly felt a thousand times better. He just did.
But when it came time for the ring, the unthinkable happened. He took it carefully from his pocket. It wasn’t the Ambrey ring-his mother had refused to take that off-but it was another of the entailed family heirlooms. In fact, the ring he was giving Miss Brown was bigger than the Ambrey ring, because he knew that would annoy his mother, and besides, he had always liked women in heavy jewelry. It was a square agate intaglio face, ringed with-well, he was fairly sure the large clear stones were paste, but they were pretty. The thick band was gold, at any rate. It had been cleaned and fitted to Miss Brown’s finger the week before.
She had made no demur when he showed it to her, but he was suddenly uncomfortably aware that he had never seen her wear anything but a tiny gold locket or, once, an amber cross on a chain. Was she eying the ring with distaste?
He took her hand and began, “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow-”
Someone, somewhere in the church, laughed. “Rather the other way round, isn’t it?”
Nev dropped the ring.