Fortune's Mistress Page 2

  By the time the new Lady Blakensly returned, her younger sister had already embarked on the life of a demirep, the life she had been forced to choose. Despite Olivia’s tearful pleadings, Marianne had refused to accept her sister’s offer of a refuge in her own home, and the episode remained something the sisters did not discuss.

  “And William and the children?” Marianne continued, turning the conversation. “How do they fare?”

  At the mention of her family, Olivia’s expression became more animated. “Dear little Maria cut her first tooth this week, and has already contrived to bite Nurse with it!”

  “Charmer!” Marianne laughed.

  “And young Justin has made the acquaintance of his first tutor. I cannot but fear the gentleman is too strict with him, although William merely smiles at my apprehensions, and assures me a bit of discipline is good for him.” She shook her head. “My husband insists—in the nicest way possible, you know—I have indulged the lad shockingly, but I cannot agree. I simply like to see my children happy.”

  “And how does your William get on?” Marianne had never met her sister’s husband, but was grateful to him nonetheless for countenancing these precious meetings. Few others would have been so liberal-minded.

  “Very well indeed.” Olivia’s face lit with clear affection and pride. When a cloud of scandal had overhung the family so soon after his entry to it, he had helped Olivia to brave it out, using his name and influence to compel the ton’s acceptance of his new wife. “He will assume his seat when next the House meets. He says it is a mere nothing, but I know he is as delighted as I. I only hope he will not object, if I wish to attend the first session.”

  “Why ever should he object?” Marianne asked. “I should think he would wish your presence above all things, my sweet, he is so besotted with you.”

  Olivia blushed and took her younger sister’s hand. “You see, the session will not be for some little time and ... I am once more enceinte.”

  “You are . . . with child?” Marianne asked, her voice wavering. Although she could never begrudge her sister any joy, she felt her throat tighten painfully. How different would be the upbringing of Olivia’s child, and the one she herself now carried. One feted and fussed over by all and sundry. The other reared in a cloud of seclusion, however loving.

  “Is it not splendid!” Olivia threw back her head and hugged herself. “I had hoped, of course, but I did not dream it would be so soon. There is nothing in the world so joyous as a tiny new baby, Marianne. How I wish you could know what it is— “

  She stopped herself suddenly, looking abashed. “You must forgive me, dearest. How foolish of me to run on so, when my enthusing must surely give you nothing but pain. I know you never like to speak of yourself, but it always seems as if I never allow my tongue a rest, even should you wish to be more forthcoming.”

  “Do not worry,” Marianne said softly. She looked down for a moment at her gloved hands before going on. “I should never have survived these last years, had I not known I would see you here each month and hear about— “

  She stopped herself short of saying the words that were on her tongue: Hear about the life I might have had. Still, she herself was about to embark on a new life. The shadow of regret which had hung over her so long must be banished for good and all. There was reason for celebration on both their parts, if only Olivia would see it that way. “However, I shall surprise you today, Olivia. There is something important I must tell you.”

  A flicker of concern darkened Olivia’s blue eyes.

  “There now, it is not so very dreadful,” her sister assured her. “In fact, on the whole, it is something very good indeed.”

  Olivia looked doubtful, her question showing clearly in her eyes: how could anything under the sun improve her sister’s lot? Then her expression brightened and she jumped to her feet, clapping her hands together in joyful surprise. “What a great dolt I am not to have thought of it at once! It is Monte Cheswick, is it not? He has asked you to marry him!”

  Marianne quickly negated that possibility with a shake of her head. “What? Do you think I should allow myself to ruin yet another life? I hope I have not given you reason to think of such a thing, Olivia. I would not stoop to such a trick as to accept him, even were he so foolish as to ask.” She took a deep breath before going on. “The truth is, I shall be leaving London. Next week, in fact, if all goes as I plan.”

  Olivia gasped and whirled toward her. “Leaving London?”

  “Yes. No one must know, but I shall soon be quitting the city for good, departing for the country. Alone.”

  “Departing …?” Olivia stared at her blankly. “But what does this mean? How? Where? And for heaven’s sake, why?”

  “I can supply the answers to your questions far more easily than I arrived at them, I can tell you,” she returned, holding out her hand once more. Olivia took it in her own, but Marianne could feel a tremor run between them. “Calm yourself, dear. All it really means is that I shall at last have some independence. As to how, I have had for some time an amount put by for the occasion. Where ... I am afraid it must be Cornwall. I require a remote location.”

  “Remote! Cornwall!” Olivia pulled away from her. “You might as well have said Australia! For God’s sake, Marianne, tell me, why must you go so far?”

  Marianne leaned her head back and stared up into the spacious blue above her for a long moment, avoiding her sister’s piercing eye. “It is merely, my dear,” she said at last, “that, like you, I am with child.”

  Olivia sank to the bench beside her, entirely still for a moment, silent for once. The breeze ruffled the newly leafed trees, but no other sound intruded. Silhouetted against the bright sky, Olivia’s profile revealed the set of a strong-willed chin. She looked for all the world as she had when they were both children, and some nursery battle was about to be engaged. At last, she stood and attempted a thin smile.

  “Let us walk a little, Marianne,” she said. Although she maintained her demeanor admirably, Olivia’s voice faltered, weak as a girl’s. “Of a sudden, my head feels as if it has been rolled up in cobwebs. I fear it must be cleared, before I can comprehend this business.”

  Marianne arose, and the sisters made their way down a secluded walk. Still silent, she noted abstractedly that the earlier blossoms of spring crocus had faded into little piles of withered gold and purple, like miniature gowns discarded after a ball. How many centuries had it been since she and Olivia had daydreamed about the revels of fairy folk, dancing till first light in spring gardens? In spite of the new life within her, she felt very old indeed.

  “What does Cheswick say to this?” Olivia broke into her thoughts.

  “Cheswick ...” Marianne began, then hesitated. She knew quite well what her sister’s response would be, and steeled herself for it. “I am afraid Cheswick . . . does not know.”

  “Does not know!” Olivia choked. “Why did you not tell him at once?”

  “To what end?” she asked simply.

  “To what end!” Olivia’s eyes flashed. “Only consider your situation. You are alone, without protection or support. How can you be so idiotic?”

  “Listen but a moment,” Marianne said calmly. “I know I must seem foolish— “

  “Seem!”

  “— but trust me. I do know what I am about. To begin with, Cheswick is about to be married.”

  “All the more reason he should know!” Olivia insisted. “It is no secret his will be nothing more than an alliance of estates. If only he knew, he might— “

  “I know. He might feel duty bound to make some settlement on me, true, but I am not the sort of woman for whom sacrifices are made. Nor do I wish to be. In any case,” she went on quickly, “I shall get along quite nicely without his support. I have already purchased a small house. I have enough put aside to provide for myself and the babe for the foreseeable future.”

  “So you will go to the end of the earth?” her sister said bleakly. “You cannot know about childbi
rth, Marianne. It is no easy thing, for all I have been so fortunate. And in Cornwall! You will be hard-pressed to find an apothecary to attend you, let alone a surgeon.”

  “Country women have been bearing children for centuries, Olivia,” she said wryly, “and seemingly with less difficulty than is met in the city, for all our learned physicians.”

  “Are you absolutely determined in this course?”

  Marianne nodded.

  “Then we shall never meet again,” her sister said hopelessly.

  “Of course, we shall. It will simply be more difficult to arrange.” She walked ahead a bit, frowning. Leaving Olivia, indeed, was her only regret. She would see her sister again, though. She would make sure. “Olivia,” she said softly, as she turned and stretched out her hand. “Will you not see that this is the only way? Will you not wish me happy?”

  Tears sparkled in Olivia’s eyes, and she could feel them rising in her own. “How can you doubt me?” her sister asked, her voice trembling. “I have ever wished, prayed, that some happiness might be yours. I have been so blessed in life! It has hurt me to my core to see you so isolated, so chained to a fate that might have been anyone’s through a moment’s folly.”

  Marianne shook her head. “I was altogether foolish.”

  “You were trusting,” Olivia exclaimed bitterly. “Were we not raised to be biddable and sweet? To yield to whatever whims— “

  “Do you not see?” Marianne interrupted. “It simply does not matter anymore. It is time to forget the past. And now— now I have the ability, the opportunity, indeed, the duty to do so. To leave it behind, and start two new lives.” She paused and blinked back the tears. “Perhaps,” she went on, “I can still make something good from all of this.”

  Olivia pulled her shawl more tightly about her and looked up into the sky. “You will have all my thoughts and prayers,” she whispered.

  “And your silence?” Marianne asked. “No one must know of this.”

  Her sister attempted a smile. “Except for William. He does ask after you, you know, although you have never met. And I keep no secrets from my husband.”

  Marianne nodded silently, as she wondered for the hundredth time what it would be to enjoy such a companionship. She did not know what the future held, but she prayed that a measure of happiness would not be forever withheld.

  Chapter Three

  Marianne sat back on her knees and wiped her hands on her apron, before bracing them against the dull ache in her back. How good it was to be in a garden, to be nurturing green things! She had never before been allowed the freedom to plunge her hands into soil, and she did so these days with enthusiasm. The smell of the earth was sweet, and her heart was light.

  Even though she had been engaged in her new life less than two months, she surveyed the scene before her with satisfaction: a garden of her very own. Despite the waning summer, the flowerbeds were wild with color, pink clashing against gold against violet, like a disheveled trunk of bright silk ball gowns.

  That was what she liked best about this garden, she decided. Years of neglect had engendered its own beauty. Grown beyond artificial borders, it was no longer forced into any shape except that which nature intended. All evidence of patterned pathways lined with stiff rows had been erased, and she planted and pruned judiciously, respecting the wildness which held sway here. Now opening to the sunlight that arched above the rooftop, the flowers looked carelessly lovely, as if they had just arisen.

  In a way, this late summer blossoming mirrored her own state, she thought with a slight smile. It was just as well, however, that summer would soon be coming to an end. Already, the sun seemed paler in the sky than it had a month ago. Soon enough she would be unequal to such exertion as had been her custom these last weeks. A winter fireside and a pile of novels would hold a charm of their own, she was sure.

  Marianne looked fondly toward her house. Rosewood Cottage was as sweet a haven as she could have dreamt. Its rosy bricks were partially obscured by ivy, and the diamond pane windows glinted as they caught the sun. It was all her own, hers and the babe’s.

  She had stepped with very little difficulty from her old life into the new. But what difficulty could there be, she asked herself, moving from the constraints imposed by censure to the freedom of anonymity? From being a possession, to again commanding her own destiny? Erasing a sordid past and replacing it with innocent new life?

  Despite her fears, no one in the village seemed to question the arrival of the “newly widowed” mother-to-be. Her story of a husband killed on the Peninsula was not unusual. Nor did she deny the rumor that had somehow arisen that his toplofty family had turned their collective back on her. For the most part, the villagers seemed content to leave her to the solitude of widowhood, and happy enough that her purchase and tenancy of the cottage would generate positions for several of their sons and daughters.

  She arose from her knees and stretched in the bright sunlight. Kneeling in the damp earth had made her a little stiff, and the notion of a ramble over the hills now seemed the very thing. She fetched a shawl from the house, for the wind off the sea seemed sometimes to penetrate to her very bones, then strolled off into the countryside.

  A winding path led the way to a green dale she had grown fond of, where a circle of stones, centuries old, stood stark against the horizon. She had encountered few other people on previous walks, and none in the vicinity of the stone circle. Local legend told of seven virgins who had been turned to stone there for dancing on the Sabbath, and the country folk considered the place to be haunted by both the spirits of the poor damsels and the fairy folk with which the land, she was told, abounded. In a way, it seemed she haunted it herself, for since she had first discovered the circle and heard the stories, she had returned to it time and again.

  Around the stones, she saw that bunches of bright violet flowers had sprung up since her last visit, and she stooped to pick a few. When she and Olivia had been children, it was their custom to fashion crowns for themselves out of any hapless wildflowers they discovered, and her fingers began to fashion a coronet, seemingly of their own accord.

  Marianne seated herself on one of the stones which had fallen sideways in the grass, and looked out over the landscape which stretched forward, green and gold, before giving way to more rugged outcroppings of dark rock. In the far distance, the dull roar of the sea made its timeless complaint.

  She had fashioned two small crowns when she heard an uneven gait approaching through the grass. Startled, she looked up and saw to her dismay a golden hound running toward her on three legs, its left quarter dipping as it bounded toward her. She sat perfectly still as the dog slowed, then ambled up and lay its large head in her lap, looking up at her with huge brown eyes. Her uncertainty faded.

  “And where have you sprung from?” she asked as she began to stroke its head. “Did the fairy folk conjure you up to bear me company, or are you merely one of their number in disguise?”

  The dog yawned, then cast his soulful eyes up to her, as if to say he would certainly tell her if only he could. He leaned heavily into her as she scratched under his chin, and she saw that, though the dog was missing a leg, the wound was long healed and had closed almost invisibly. Along the thin scar she thought she could perceive faint evidence of stitches having once been set there. Who would take such care, go to such expense for a dog? she wondered.

  The dog sniffed at the flower wreaths that still lay in her lap, and, laughing, she placed one on his golden head and, in a extravagant moment of whimsy, another on her own. Panting, he smiled up at her in a doggish grin.

  “There,” she said softly. “Though autumn is on the air, we shall both be crowned with summer while we may.”

  Just then, the dog pricked up his ears and turned away from her. Almost at once, she heard a distant voice call, “Caliban! Where the devil have you gone? Here, boy!”

  The dog wheeled away from her at this summons, the crown falling down over one ear as he ran. The sound of a human voice
brought Marianne to her feet. She spun from her perch with an apprehensive start, and stepped behind the nearest stone pillar.

  Although she could not yet see the stranger, Marianne immediately had recognized in his tones the inflection of her own class. This was no mere countryman, but one who had undeniably sprung from the heart of the ton. The sensation of vulnerability, the fear of exposure, washed over her like a sudden shower, prompting a shudder she was unable to quell. As she flattened herself against the stone, she experienced as well an odd annoyance rising in her at the notion of an intruder in her dale. She recognized quite well the foolishness of such a feeling, but still, she felt deflated, as if a magic spell had been broken.

  “Good boy, Caliban, but what is this?”

  Marianne peeped out from her shelter behind the stone column, and caught a glimpse of the gentleman as he emerged and knelt beside the dog. He fingered the wreath curiously for a moment before saying, “I cannot but say it becomes you, friend.”

  He looked about, then caught sight of Marianne before she could slip behind the boulder once more. He approached her at once, and closer inspection of him brought Marianne up short, for he was not at all what she had anticipated. His accent had brought to mind the polished figure and style of a Corinthian. She expected hair à la Brutus, and a cravat done in the Mathematical at the very least. The gentleman who greeted her just then fit this picture not at all.

  His hair was bright gold and badly in need of cutting; his linen was tied in a simple knot. While aristocratic, his face was marred by a long fine scar, which traced a path from his chin to his left ear. It looked, she thought unaccountably, as if he had been grazed by the sharp steel edge of an angel’s wing in some encounter between the celestial and the mundane.