Marriage Made In Hope

* * *

At least the ballroom was warm, she thought half an hour later, as their party made their way through the crowded rooms, this outing so far holding none of the fear she’d imagined it might.

‘You look beautiful this evening, my dearest love,’ Richard said as they took their places at the top of the room, the orchestra easily observed from where they stood. ‘Lemon and silk suits you entirely.’

‘Thank you.’ There was a tone in her voice that was foreign and displaced.

‘I hope we might have a dance together as soon as the music begins.’

Her heart began to beat a little faster, but she pushed the start of panic down. ‘Of course.’

She was coping and for that she was glad. She was managing to be just the person everybody here thought she was. No one watched her too intently, no conversation had swirled to a stop as she passed a group, no whispered conjectures or raised fans behind which innuendo could be shared. No pity.

Her betrothed’s first finger touched a drop of ornately fashioned white gold at her ear. ‘I knew they would look well on you as soon as I saw them, my love. I was planning on keeping them as a surprise until your birthday, but you looked as if a present might be the very thing needed to cheer you up. I managed to get them at a good price from Rundell’s as they have high hopes of my further ducal patronage in the future.’

‘I imagine that they do.’ She tried to keep sarcasm from the words, but wondered if she had been successful as he turned to look at her sharply. She had not used such a thing before, the poor man’s version of humour, but tonight she could not help it. The chandelier above them gave the blurred appearance of light through water and it momentarily made her take in a deep breath.

All about her was a living, moving feast of life: five hundred people, myriad colours, the scent of fine food and the offer of expensive wine. Without thought her hand lifted to a long-stemmed crystal glass on the silver platter a footman had just presented to the party and if Richard frowned at her choice he had at least the sense not to say anything.

She seldom drank alcohol, but the orgeat lemonade tonight held no allure at all. It looked like the water of the Thames somehow, cloudy, cold and indistinct. She swallowed the wine like a person finding a waterhole in the middle of an endless desiccated African desert and reached out for another. Her mother shook her head even as Richard set his bottom teeth against his top ones and tried to smile. The glint of anger in his eyes was back.

But it was so good, this quiet escape that took the edge off a perpetual panic and made everything more bearable. Even the gaudy new bracelet twinkling in the light started to have more appeal.

The beginnings of the three-point tune of a waltz filled the air around them and when her betrothed took her arm and led her into the dance she allowed him the privilege. His closeness was not the problem it would have been ten minutes earlier and she wondered if perhaps she had been too harsh on a man who after all had always loved her and had failed to learn to swim.

The feel of him was known, his short brown hair well cut and groomed, the smell of an aftershave that held notes of bergamot and musk.

‘You look very pretty, Sephora, and more like yourself.’ This time his smile was genuine and she saw in him for a moment the boy whom she had grown up with and played with, though his next words burst that nostalgic bubble completely. ‘I do think, though, that you should refrain from imbibing any more wine.’

‘Refrain when I have barely begun to feel its effect?’

‘You have had two full glasses already, my dearest heart, and you are now in some danger of flippancy.’

‘Flippancy?’ She rolled the word on her tongue and liked it. She had never been flippant. She had always been serious and composed and polite until she had fallen headlong into that river and discovered things about herself that she could no longer hide.

For just a second she thought she loathed her intended groom with such ferocity she might well indeed have simply hit him. But the moment passed and she was herself again, chastised by the impulse and made impotent by fright.

Who was that inside of her? What crouched below the quiet and ladylike bearing that was her more usual demeanour and appearance, the lemon silk in her gown, the curls in her hair, the dainty bejewelled slippers upon her feet?

She had a headache, she did, a searing terrible headache that made her sick and dizzy. Richard in a rare moment of empathy recognised the fact and led her over to a chair near the wall apart from the others and made her sit down.

‘Stay here whilst I find your mother, Sephora. You do not look well at all.’

She could only nod and watch him go, the slight form of him disappearing amongst the crowd to be replaced by a man she recognised instantly.

‘You.’ Hardly mannerly, desperately said. The sound came from her in a whisper as Francis St Cartmail stood alone in front of her.

‘I am glad to see you much recovered, Lady Sephora. I am sorry I did not stay to see to your welfare after...’ The earl stopped.

‘My drowning?’ She supplied the ending for him and he smiled. It made his face softer somehow, the scar on his left cheek curled into a smaller shape and her three scratches on his right almost disappearing into a deep dimple.

‘Hardly a drowning. More a case of getting wet, I think.’

Simple words that she needed. Words that took away the terror and the hugeness of all that had transpired. He was even looking at her with humour in his eyes. Sephora wanted him to keep on talking, but he didn’t, though the stillness that fell between them was as distinct as any conversation.

‘Thank you,’ she finally managed.

‘You are welcome,’ he returned and then he was gone, Richard in his stead with her mother, her face creased in worry and remorse.

‘I should never have let you come. I shall have a good word with the doctor after this and tell him that it was much too soon and that...’

The words rattled on, but Sephora had ceased to listen. She was safe again, she knew it.

Hardly a drowning. More a case of getting wet, I think.

She suddenly knew that Francis St Cartmail would never have let her drown, not in a million years. He would have jumped in and saved her had the depth of the water been ten feet or twenty. He would have dragged her across a current many times more dangerous or a river fifty times as wide if he had had to.

Because he could.

Because she believed that he could, this enigmatic and unusual earl with his wide shoulders and steel-strong arms.

The relief of it was so startling she could barely breathe. She smiled at the thought. Breath was the one thing she did have now here in the Hadleighs’ ballroom under thirty or more elegant chandeliers and an orchestra of violinists beating out a waltz.

She was alive and well. The spark inside her had not been quenched entirely and was at this very moment bursting into a tiny flaring flame of revival.

She could not believe it.

Francis St Cartmail’s smile was beautiful and the cabochon ring on his finger was exactly as she remembered it. His voice was deep and kind and his eyes were hazel, like the leaves fallen in a forest after a particularly cold autumn, all of the shades of ruin.

And people watched him, carefully, uncertainly, the wave of faces following him holding both fear and awe and another emotion, too. Wonderment, if she might name it as he stalked alone through a sea of colour and wearing only a deep swathe of unbroken black.

She hoped there was someone here he might find a shelter with, some friend who would throw off the ton’s interest with as much nonchalance as he did himself, but he was lost to sight and her mother and Richard observed her closely.

She did not want to go home now. She wished to stay here so that she might catch sight of the Earl of Douglas again and hope that another conversation might eventuate.

He’d smelt like soap and lemon and cleanness, the crisp odour of washed male having the effect of bringing Sephora quickly to her feet.

Her worried mother took her hand.

‘Would you like some supper, my dear? Perhaps if you ate something you might feel better?’

Food was the last thing she truly wanted, but some sort of destination solved the problem of simply standing there dumbstruck, so she nodded.

* * *

After that most unusual exchange Francis went to join Gabriel Hughes leaning against a pillar on one side of the room. ‘Was she what you expected?’

‘You speak of Lady Sephora, I presume?’

‘Cat and mouse does not suit you, Francis. I saw you talking to her. What did you think?’

‘She is smaller than I remember her and paler. She is also frightened.’

‘Of what?’

‘I think she was sure she was going to drown and has suffered since for it. She thanked me for saving her.’

‘And that’s all that she said?’

‘Well, there was some silence, too.’

‘The stunned silence of Perseus falling in love with the drowning Andromeda?’ Gabriel’s tone held a good deal of humour in it that Francis ignored.

‘She fell off a bridge, for God’s sake. She was not chained to a rock waiting to be devoured by sea monsters.’

‘Still, one must feel a certain connection when a soul is saved. I would imagine something along the lines of the life debt in honour-bound cultures, so to speak.’

‘A heavy price, if that’s the case? I did not see such in the eyes of Sephora Connaught, though they are surprisingly blue.’

Gabriel nodded. ‘And young men have written sonnets about those orbs. The number of her suitors is legendary, though she has turned each and every one of them down.’

‘For the marquis?’ He didn’t want to ask the question, but found himself doing so.

‘Winslow fancies himself as something of an example others should be copying in both dress and manner, I think. He is said to be somewhat pompous and arrogant in his dealings with people.’

‘Well, he looks fairly harmless.’ Glancing across the room to where the young lord stood, Francis saw that Sephora Connaught was tucked in beside him.

‘Harmless but controlling. See how he positions himself at her elbow. Adelaide said that if I were to ever constantly hover like the Marquis of Winslow does, she would simply shove me in the ribs.’

‘Perhaps Lady Sephora enjoys it?’

‘I think she allows it because she has never known differently.’

Sephora Connaught’s profile was caught against the light—a small turned-up nose, sculptured brow and cheekbones that were high. Her pallor was almost white.

‘From all accounts Winslow congratulated himself quite heartily on his organisation at the riverside, but his bride-to-be does not look quite herself tonight. Perhaps she does not concur to the same opinion. Perhaps she wishes he had thrown caution to the wind and made the more solid gesture of self-sacrifice by jumping in after her.’

‘Stop teasing, Gabe.’ Adelaide swiped her husband’s arm. ‘It was a scary and dangerous situation and I am certain everyone tried to do their best. Even the marquis for all his pedantic and fussy ways.’

But Francis was not so sure. ‘No, I think Gabe has the gist of him. Winslow sent me a card the next day. While he made an art form of thanking me for my help, he also implied that further correspondence with Lady Sephora would be most unwelcome. He did not want her bothered by any maudlin recount of the incident, he stated, and hoped I had put the whole nonsense behind me because he certainly had.’

‘So you are now to be an inconsequential saviour? A man to be barely thanked?’ Gabriel looked like he wanted to go over and knock Allerly’s head off his shoulders.

‘Winslow’s father is ill so perhaps that is weighing heavily upon him.’ Adelaide frowned as she added this to the conversation. ‘It is, however, hard to imagine what a woman like Sephora Connaught might see in such a man.’

‘She grew up with him,’ Gabriel said. ‘Both families are friends with strong ties and all adhere to the expectations of old tradition, so I am sure the parents are more than pleased with their daughter’s choice of husband.’

As they watched, Sephora’s well-endowed mother, Lady Aldford, towed her away and he observed those around giving their greetings. What was it in the young woman that intrigued him? She was the ton’s favourite daughter, a woman who had managed to snag one of the loftiest catches of the Season without even a hint of criticism from anybody. People admired her. She was everything that was good and true and honest and she was beautiful along with it. Cursing, Francis turned away and was pleased when a passing footman offered around a new tray of drinks.

Chapter Four

An hour later Francis was standing by one of the tall and opened windows at the less crowded end of the room. He wished he could have gone outside to enjoy a cheroot, but oft-times at other balls he had been waylaid in the gardens by women wanting to share more than a word with him. Tonight he did not wish to chance it.

A hand on his arm had him turning and Sephora Connaught stood beside him, a look of pleading on her face and her voice low.

‘I am glad to have this small fortune of finding you alone, Lord Douglas. I have written you a letter, you see, which I should have given you before when we spoke. The marquis let me know he had sent a card with our thanks, but I wanted the same chance myself.’

She bent to extract a paper from her reticule and handed it over. ‘Don’t read it until you are home. Promise me.’

With that she was gone, tagging on the back of a group of giggling women walking past, her mother to the other side of the procession.

The older lady caught his glance at that moment and held it, steely anger overlying puzzlement. Tipping his head at her, Francis turned, the letter from her daughter held tightly in his hand.

* * *

Sephora hoped she had done the right thing by giving him her missive. Please God, do not let him show it to his friends so that they might all laugh at her, she prayed, as her mother’s arm came through hers and Richard joined them.

She had not been able to leave Francis St Cartmail’s bravery to the ministration of Richard’s thanks. She owed him some sort of personal expression of her gratitude and her relief.

The fact that she hoped he might reply, however, made her squeeze her jaw together and grimace. It was the look in his eyes, she thought, that had convinced her to approach him, that and the blazing scar upon his cheek. He’d been hurt badly and she did not wish that for him. Even the scratches she had placed there herself were still visible.

Unfortunately she knew her mother had seen her speaking with the earl, but Elizabeth would say nothing of it within Richard’s hearing distance. Maria was chattering away and laughing and Sephora was so very glad for her sister’s joy in life. She wondered where her own joy had gone, but did not at that particular moment wish to dissect such a notion.

Over against the pillars on the other side of the room the number of beautiful women around Francis St Cartmail seemed to have multiplied. She recognised Alice Bailey and Cate Haysom-Browne, two of the most fêted debutantes of this Season, and both were using their fans with the practised coquetry of females who knew their worth.

‘Have you enjoyed the night, Sephy?’ Her father was beside them now and his pet name for her made her smile.

‘I have, Papa.’

‘Then it is good to see you happy after your awful fright.’

Just a fright now? She frowned at his terminology, thinking her parents had no idea of the true state of her mind.

‘The marquis has decided to stay on for a while, but we thought to head for home. Richard has people to connect with, I suppose, now that his father is sick.’

‘You saw the duke a few days ago. How does he fare?’

‘Not so well, I am afraid. He and your Aunt Josephine are retiring to the country. I hope that he will at least get to experience the occasion of his only son’s wedding in November before...’

He stopped at that and a constricting guilt of worry tightened about Sephora’s throat. Uncle Jeffrey was a good man and he had only ever been kind to her, but she did not wish to shift her nuptials to Richard forward six months so that his father might live to see it. The very thought made her feel ill.

It was as if she stood on a threshold of change and to cross over it meant that she would never ever be able to come back. She was also unreasonably pleased that Richard would not be accompanying them homewards in the carriage this evening. Such a thought gave her cause to hesitate, but she could not explore the relief here in the glittering ballrooms of the ton.

Her mother was watching her closely and further afield she saw the wife of Lord Wesley, Adelaide Hughes, looking across at her with interest.

The cards of her life were changing, all stacked up in random piles, the joker here, the king of hearts there. A twist of fate and her hand might be completely different from the one that she had held on to so tightly and for so very many years.

The water beneath the Thames had set her free perhaps, with its sudden danger and its instant jeopardy. Always before this her life had flowed on a gentle certain course, barely a ripple, hardly a wave.

She was glad she had given Francis St Cartmail her letter, glad that she had mustered up the courage and seized the chance to do something so very out of character.

The Connaught wraps were found by the footman in the elegant entrance hall of the Hadleigh town house and moments later they were on their way home.

* * *

Francis poured himself a drink and opened the windows to one side of his library. Breathing in, he shut the door and reached for the pocket inside his jacket before sitting down behind his wide oaken desk.

The parchment was unmarked and sealed with a dab of red wax. There was no design embossed into it and no ribbons either. He brought the paper to his nose. The faint smell of some flower was there, but Sephora Connaught had not perfumed her letter in any way. It was as if the sheet of paper had simply caught the fragrance she wore and bore it to him.

He smiled at such fancy and at his deliberate slowness in opening it. Breaking the seal, he let the sheet of crisp paper unfold before him.

Francis St Cartmail...

Her written hand was small and neat, but she had made her ‘s’ longer in the tail than was normal so that they sat in long curls of elegance upon the page.

His entire name, too, without any title. A choice between too formal and too informal, he imagined, and read on.

I should like to thank you most sincerely for rescuing me from the river water. It was deep and cold and my clothes were very heavy. I should have learned to swim, I think, and then I could have at least tried to rescue myself. As it was, I was trapped by fear and panic.

This is mostly why I have written. I scratched you badly, I was told, on your cheek. My sister, Maria, made a point of relating to me the damage I had inflicted upon your person and I am certain the Marquis of Winslow would not have made it his duty to apologise for such a harm.

It is my guilt.

I think that this rescue was not easy for you either, for Maria said you looked most ill on exiting the water. I hope you have recovered. I hope it was not because I took the very last of your breath.

I also hope I might meet you again to give you this letter and that you will see in every word my sincere and utter gratitude.

Yours very thankfully,

Sephora Frances Connaught

Francis smiled at the inclusion of their shared name in the signature as he laid his finger over the word. He could not remember ever receiving a thank-you letter from anyone before and he liked to imagine her penning this note, each letter carefully placed on the page. Precise and feminine.

Did she know anything at all about him? Did she understand what others said of him with the persistent rumours of a past he could not be proud of?

Leaning forward, he smoothed out the sheet and read it again before folding it up and putting it back in his pocket, careful to anchor it in with the flap of the fabric’s opening. A commotion outside the room had him listening. It was late, past midnight and he could not understand who might arrive at his doorstep at this hour.

When the door flew open and a dishevelled and very angry young girl stood on the other side of it he knew exactly who she was.

‘Let me go.’ She pulled her arm away from the aged lawyer and stood there, breathing loudly.

‘Miss Anna Sherborne, I presume.’

Eyes the exact colour of his own flashed angrily, reminding Francis so forcibly of the Douglas mannerisms and temper he was speechless. Ignatius Wiggins stepped out from behind her.

‘I am sorry to be calling on you so late, my lord, but our carriage threw a wheel and it took an age to have it repaired. This is my final duty to Mr Clive Sherborne, Lord Douglas. On the morrow I leave for the north of England and my own kin in York and I will not be back to London. Miss Sherborne needs a home and a hearth. I hope you shall give her one as she has been summarily tossed out from her last abode with the parish minister.’

With that he left.

Francis gestured to the child to come further into the room and as she did so the light found her. She was small and very dark. He had not expected that, for both the mother and his uncle were fair.

She did not speak. She merely watched him, anger on her thin face and something else he could not quite determine. Shock, perhaps, at being so abandoned.

‘I am the Earl of Douglas.’

‘I know who you are. He told me, sir.’ Her voice was strangely inflected, a lilt across the last word.

Removing the signet ring from his finger, he placed it on the table between them. ‘Do you know this crest, Miss Sherborne?’

He saw her glance take in the bauble.

‘It has come to my notice that you have a locket wrought in gold with the same design embellished upon it. It was sent to you after you left the house of your father as a baby according to the papers I have been given.’

Now all he saw was confusion and the want to run and with care he replaced the signet ring on his finger and took in a breath.

‘You are the illegitimate daughter of the fourth Earl of Douglas, who was my uncle. Your mother was his...mistress for a brief time and you were the result.’ Francis wondered if he should have been so explicit, but surely a girl brought up in the sort of household the lawyer had taken pains in describing would not be prudish. Besides, it had all been written in black and white.

‘My mother did not stay around much. She had other friends and I was often just a nuisance. She never spoke of any earl.’

An arm came to rest upon a high-backed wing chair. Every nail was bitten and dirty and there was a healing injury on her middle finger.

‘Well, I promise here you will be well cared for. You have my word of honour as your cousin upon it. I will never ask you to leave.’

The shock that crossed her face told him she hadn’t had many moments of such faith in her young life and she was reeling hard in panic.

‘A word of honour don’t mean much where I come from, sir. Anyone can say anything and they do.’

‘Well, Anna, in this house one’s word means something. Remember that.’

When Mrs Wilson bustled into the room on his instructions a few moments later he asked that the girl be fed, bathed and put to bed, for even as he spoke he saw that Anna Sherborne was about to fall over with tiredness. If his housekeeper looked surprised by the turn of events she did not show it, merely taking the unexpected and bedraggled guest by the arm and leading her off towards the kitchens.

‘Come, dearie, we will find you something to eat for you have the look of the starved about you, mark my words, and in this house we cannot have that.’