The Adventurous Bride. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ groom pulled free of Diana and touched his knuckle to his forehead. “Beg pardon, Your Grace, but her ladyship’s speaking true. This don’t be what it seems, not by—”

      “Hold your tongue, you wretched fool!” Father’s expression darkened, black thunderclouds by the lantern’s light. “No excuses from any of you. I know what I see, and I know what this is.”

      “Don’t fault Mary, Father, I beg you.” Diana shoved down her skirts and tried to smooth her hair. “She was only—”

      “I’ll tell you the same as I told your sister, Diana,” Father said sharply. “No more excuses from either of you.”

      “We’re not making excuses, Father,” Mary pleaded. “I was only—that is, we were—”

      “No more.” His hand sliced through the air, a sharp gesture to match the cutting edge of his voice. “Make yourselves decent, and come to me in the library. Now.”

      He turned on his heel and left them, his back ramrod-straight with his anger, and Miss Wood scurrying after him into the dark. The stable master grabbed the groom by the shoulder and half-shoved, half-dragged him from the stall.

      Mary looked at her sister. Diana bowed her head. It was too late for explanations now, too late for remorse or contrition.

      All they could do was obey.

      An hour later, Mary sat on the edge of the bench in the hall outside the library, her feet flat on the floor and her hands clasped in her lap. Diana had gone in first to Father, and though Mary could not make out their words through the closed door, she could hear enough to know that Father’s anger hadn’t cooled a bit, and that Diana’s wailing tears and shrill protests had done nothing to help her cause.

      Mary bent her head, closing her eyes and pressing her hands over her ears to try to shut out her quarrelling family. Soon enough she’d be called in to stand between them. She’d have to soothe Father’s temper, and coax fresh promises of reformation from Diana. One more time, she’d make some manner of a shaky peace, the oil poured on the constantly roiling waters of Aston Hall.

      From behind the closed door came the crash of hurled porcelain, and Mary hunched her shoulders like a turtle retreating into its shell. In three days, she’d sail for France, and be free of it all.

      Only three more days….

      The door flew open. “He is cruel, Mary, unspeakably cruel to me and to you—to us both!” Diana sank down on the floor before the bench, her wrinkled yellow skirts spreading out around her, and clutched Mary’s hands in her own. “Oh, Mary, I am so vastly sorry!”

      “Don’t fuss over me, Di,” Mary whispered urgently, knowing they’d little time before it was her turn. “What made him most cross? Quick, quick, tell me! What must I say to coax him back to good cheer?”

      But Diana only shook her head, her face still flushed with weeping. “Oh, Mary, how can you forgive me? I only meant to amuse myself for a moment or two, and now look what has happened! For Father to make us both suffer so, when—”

      “Mary, come,” called Father sharply from inside the library. “I know you’re waiting out there, for you always were the obedient one.”

      “Don’t worry, Diana, I’ll set things to rights.” Mary smiled, and gave Diana’s hands one final squeeze to reassure her. Then she smoothed her skirts, raised her head high, and joined Father in the library.

      “Here you are at last, Mary.” He was sitting in his leather-covered armchair, pushed back from his desk. Though a widower, Father was still in his prime, his belly flat beneath his Chinese-silk waistcoat and besotted ladies tittering about him wherever he went. Unlike most gentlemen of his generation, he’d chosen to follow the newer fashion, and had abandoned wigs in favor of his own dark hair cropped short and feathered with gray.

      Yet as Mary came to stand before him, what she noticed first was how the large vein in his forehead pulsed, a bad sign that she recognized all too well. His temper seemed to simmer around him like a swarm of hornets, anger and disappointment and general irritation vibrating together in the warm night air.

      “Your sister has shamed me again, Mary,” he began, his voice an irate growl. “Not even you can defend her this time.”

      “I would not defend Diana, no,” Mary countered with care, searching for the best way to soothe him. “Thus I ask not for forgiveness for her, but for mercy.”

      “Oh, mercy you.” He snorted with disgust. “Come along, Mary, I’d expect more wit from you than that.”

      “Mercy doesn’t require wit, Father.”

      “No, but I do.” With his guests now departed, he’d shed his coat and rolled back the ruffled cuffs of his shirt to his elbows, his thick fingers drumming irritably on the carved mahogany arm of his chair. “Why do you defend Diana, anyway? She was acting like a common slattern with that rascal, as if her good name and mine weren’t worth a brass farthing.”

      “She didn’t mean to upset you, Father, I’m sure of it,” Mary said. “I’ll grant she was irresponsible—”

      “Oh, aye, letting some base-born groom ruck up her skirts,” he growled, and struck his open palm on the arm of the chair with frustration. “I’ve no right to be upset about that?”

      “Yes, Father,” Mary said, knowing from experience that this was always the safest reply, and often the only acceptable one. “Of course you have.”

      “Then why does your sister keep shaming me like this?” Unable to sit still any longer, he shoved back his chair and rose, turning his back to Mary to stare out the window. “It’s high time she weds. I’m too old for her willfulness. She needs a strong, young husband to thrash her into obedience, some young lion who’ll break her spirit and fill her belly. That’s what she needs—an honest husband and a brood of children. What better way to make a wild filly into a mare?”

      “Yes, Father,” Mary said again. “If Diana can only find a gentleman she can love with all her heart—”

      “Don’t speak to me of drivel like that, Mary,” Father snapped. “Love! The last thing your sister needs is a dose of that foolishness.”

      “No, Father,” Mary said softly. She remembered her parents as being devoted to one another, as much in love as any sweethearts. Since her mother’s death, Father spoke of love with only bitterness and scorn, and no tenderness for Mama’s memory, as if her last, wasting illness were some personal affront to him. “But if she is able to make a favorable match in London, one that pleases you, then—”

      “No London.” His hands were clasped so tightly behind his back that they looked more like clenched fists. “How can I possibly introduce Diana to Her Majesty after such scandalous behavior?”

      “But none of the guests learned of it,” Mary protested. “The only one who might talk would be that wretched groom, and I’m sure Mr. Robinson will speak to him so he won’t—”

      “That ‘wretched groom’ will have the next three years of his life to repent,” Father said curtly. “I’ve ordered Robinson to give him over to the press gang, so that he might serve His Majesty’s navy instead of my daughter.”

      “The СКАЧАТЬ