The Devil Claims a Wife. Helen Dickson

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СКАЧАТЬ to her. She was the lady bountiful of Cherriot Vale and her hospitality to the poor was well known.

      On entering the house, Jane sought her out after glancing into the spacious undercroft where her father carried out his work and stored his merchandise and seeing a happy band of silk women doing their needlework or weaving or throwing or twisting threads surrounded by the many bolts of cloth: brocades from Milan, Venetian velvets, the finest manufactured silk from Lucca—Italian silk being of supreme quality and a significant source of trade. Jane liked nothing better than fingering these sumptuous fabrics, hopefully destined for the wealthy when her father’s business picked up, as it surely would when she married Richard.

      She found her mother in the parlour. She had opened the windows that overlooked the river shifting endlessly by. Her head beneath her tall headdress was bent over her work as she put the finishing touches to the dress Jane was to wear for her betrothal, her face still and serene as she embroidered her thoughts into the gown.

      Looking up from her work when Jane entered the room, Margaret curved her lips in a smile of welcome. ‘Ah, Jane! I’m glad you’re back, although I do wish you had been home earlier. John Aniston called on us this afternoon.’

      ‘Did he? For what reason?’

      ‘Richard has to leave for Italy sooner than planned, so, as soon you are betrothed, the wedding will have to be brought forwards.’

      Jane’s heart sank. That Richard was leaving for the commercial metropolis of Florence with a group of cloth merchants had been planned for weeks now. ‘I see. How soon?’

      ‘No more than two weeks after the betrothal.’

      Jane stared at her mother in disbelief, panic taking hold of her. ‘You can’t mean that. The wedding is set for six weeks after the betrothal. There is so much to do. It is too soon. We cannot possibly be ready in time.’

      ‘We have to be,’ Margaret said, resuming her sewing. ‘Richard wants to see you settled in his father’s house before he leaves. With you and Kate to help me we can be ready with time to spare.’ Looking up, she noted her daughter’s pale face and sensed her unease. ‘Jane, you do want to marry Richard, don’t you? You know I love you and I would understand if you are against this marriage—but …’

      ‘I don’t think Father would be so understanding,’ Jane said when her mother’s voice tapered off. ‘Where he is concerned, my opinion counts for nothing.’

      Neither, she thought, did her mother’s. Her father had not always treated his wife kindly and Jane could not remember him asking her mother’s opinion on anything. Docile and submissive, she was not a wilful woman and survived quite well. Unlike everyone else in the household, Andrew had not been afraid of his father. He had believed he knew his tempers, having been on the receiving end of his blows many times. Their father had expected Andrew to dutifully follow him into the business, but Andrew, with his sights firmly set on a military career, had had no such ambitions.

      Their father had been furious when Andrew had shown support for the Lancastrian cause and went off to fight. Indeed, wild-eyed and monstrous, he had shouted curses that had rung to the rafters. Jane always squeezed her eyes tight shut at the memory, wishing to banish it from her mind, but could not.

      Her father’s greatest fear was loss of status and, it seemed, when confronted with that possibility he lost all reason. Despite Jane’s sympathy for him, she could not bring herself to justify his treatment. She did not care if he was a man mad with disappointment and resentment or the master of the house and her person. There was no claim he could make great enough to make this right.

      ‘Your father is only doing what he thinks is best for you,’ her mother said in his defence. ‘You have to marry as your circumstances demand. And Richard does want to marry you so much.’ Sighing despondently, she shook her head and went on, ‘Circumstances have been—difficult of late. Indeed, as you are aware, the business has suffered very badly.’

      Jane knew this was true. No one could do business in a town without belonging to or having the respect of the other members of the guild. Her father’s business and his standing among the other guild members had suffered greatly because of Andrew’s support for King Henry. They all felt the humiliation of his reduced status and it was like balm to her parents’ wounds to have their daughter marrying the son of an important and respected alderman of the guild.

      ‘Far more devastating to your father’s pride was the knowledge that you would have to share the grim consequences of his misfortune,’ her mother went on in an attempt to justify her husband’s strict treatment of his eldest daughter. ‘Everyone would realise that you would not have the great dowry formerly anticipated and the most worthy of the men seeking wives, those best able to provide the standing and security you deserve, would turn their attention elsewhere. Which is why arranging this alliance is just as important to your father as winning a battle. Marriage to Richard is a way in which John Aniston intends to honour him with such an important connection. Your father is hopeful of calming the temper of the guild and redeeming both his status and the respect he rightly deserves. Perhaps then the business will prosper once more.’

      Jane took a deep, tight breath. That she was being sacrificed for her father’s ambition went against the grain, but this she kept to herself. All her life she had hoped she would have the freedom to choose her own husband, but, when it came to it, her father had chosen for her. A good alliance, he called it—but the last person she’d ever have chosen would be Richard. How she wished she could look upon him more favourably. It would be so much easier to welcome this marriage, but he was not her idea of an ideal husband—or lover.

      Averting her eyes, she was unable to ignore the picture that entered her mind of the last time she had seen Richard when he had come to dinner with his parents and other guild members, when her father had put on a lavish meal in an attempt to impress the aldermen. Jane did not think she would ever grow to love Richard, not as a woman should love her husband. Would she be able to pretend to do more than endure? When she looked into his eyes she did not see love, comfort, laughter or companionship—in fact, when he had leered at her obscenely and tried to grab her knee under the table, it seemed his thin veneer of courtesy was easily dissolved by brandy wine.

      Richard was the eldest son of John Aniston, who could refuse his son nothing. With his second son to run his cloth business, Richard had been free to follow his dream and became a squire in a nobleman’s household in Wiltshire, and later doing military service on the field of battle where his skill and bravery brought him acclamation from his superiors. It was his ambition to become a knight—but not all squires became knights.

      There had been some kind of trouble at his master’s house. The true facts were not known, but Richard’s involvement was suspected and he had been dismissed. As a consequence, under great sufferance, Richard had returned home and joined his father and brother in the business. But the manufacture of cloth held no appeal for Richard and his life’s ambition, to become a knight, to ride, hunt, fence and fight in battle, was in no way diminished.

      When Richard’s father had offered a sizeable stipend to be paid for Jane’s hand in marriage to his son, assuring Jane’s father that Richard’s dismissal from his master’s house was a trivial matter and nothing more than a young man’s exuberance, Simon Lovet had considered it a good match and seen no reason why Richard should not be considered as a suitor for Jane.

      When he told his daughter of his decision, Jane knew she would have to give up all hope of marrying someone she loved in order to save the family. Her stomach twisted into sick knots at the thought of committing her body, her entire life, into the hands of a man she instinctively recoiled from, but, miserably resigned to her fate, she lifted her head and bravely met her СКАЧАТЬ