Lord Ravensden's Marriage Read online

  good idea for her to go away...your mother's idea. She wanted the chance of a better life for at

  least one of her daughters, and her poor sister-in-law was childless. Thank God the Burtons didn't

  pick you! I couldn't have borne that loss, Beatrice.'

  'Thank you, Papa.' She smiled and kissed his forehead lovingly. 'You know, if you let all the steam

  go in one direction, it might pass through pipes before it finally escapes, and give some heat to the

  rooms. It would make the bedrooms so much warmer...as long as you could be sure the device that

  heats the water will not blow up like it did the last time.'

  'Let the steam pass through pipes that run round the house.' Mr Roade looked at his daughter as if

  she had just lit a candle in his head. 'That's a very good notion, Beatrice. It might look a little ugly,

  I suppose. I wonder if anyone would put up with that for the convenience of feeling warm?'

  'I certainly would,' Beatrice replied. 'Have you made any advances on the grate for a smokeless

  fire? Mine was smoking dreadfully again last night. It always does when the wind is from the

  east.'

  'It might be a bird's nest,' her father said. 'I'll sweep the chimney out for you tomorrow.'

  'Thank you, Papa, but I'm sure Mr Rowley will come up from the village if we ask him. It is not

  fitting for you to undertake such tasks.' Besides which, her father would make a dreadful mess of

  it!

  'Fiddlesticks!' Mr Roade said. 'I'll do it for you first thing tomorrow.'

  'Very well, Papa.'

  Beatrice smiled as she went away. Her father would have forgotten about the smoking chimney

  five minutes after she left him, which mattered not at all, since she intended to send for the sweep

  when their one and only manservant next went down to Abbot Quincey to fetch their weekly

  supplies.

  Seeing her father's manservant tending the candelabra on the lowboy in the hall, Beatrice smiled.

  'Good evening, Bellows. It is a terrible evening, is it not?'

  'We're in for a wild night, miss. Lily brought your letter?'

  'Yes, thank you—and thank you for thinking to fetch it for me.'

  'You're welcome, miss. I was in the market at Abbot Quincey and it was the work of a moment to

  see if any mail had come.'

  She nodded and smiled, then passed on up the stairs.

  It was possible to buy most goods from the general store in Abbot Quincey, which was much the

  largest of the four villages, and might even have been called a small town these days, but when

  anything more important was needed, they had to send Bellows to Northampton.

  They were lucky to have Bellows, who was responsible for much of the work .both inside the

  house and out. He had been with them since her father was a boy, and could remember when the

  Roade family had not been as poor as they were now.

  For some reason all his own, Bellows was devoted to his master, and remained loyal despite the

  fact that he had not been paid for three years. He received his keep, and had his own methods of

  supplementing his personal income. Sometimes a plump rabbit or a pigeon found its way into the

  kitchen, and Beatrice suspected that Bellows was not above a little poaching, but she would never

  dream of asking where the gift came from. Indeed, she could not afford to!

  Walking upstairs to her bedchamber to wash and change her clothes, Beatrice reflected on the

  strangeness of fate.

  'My poor, dear sister,' she murmured. 'Oh, how could that rogue Ravensden have been so cruel?'

  She herself had been deserted by a man who had previously declared himself madly in love with

  her, because, she understood, he had lost a small fortune at the gaming tables. She truly believed

  that Matthew Walters had intended to marry her, until he was ruined by a run of bad luck—he had

  certainly declared himself in love with her several times. Only her own caution had prevented her

  allowing her own feelings to show.

  If she had given way to impulse, she would have been jilted publicly, which would have made her

  situation very much worse. At least she had been spared the scandal and humiliation that would

  have accompanied such an event.

  Only Beatrice's parents had known the truth. Mrs Roade had held her while she wept out her

  disappointment and hurt...but that was a long time ago. Beatrice had been much younger then,

  perhaps a little naive, innocent of the ways of the world. She had grown up very quickly after

  Matthew's desertion.

  Since then, she had given little thought to marriage. She suspected that most men were probably

  like the one who had tried so ardently to seduce her. If she had -been foolish enough to give in to

  his pleading... what then? She might have been ruined as well as jilted. Somehow she had

  resisted, though she had believed herself in love...

  Beatrice laughed harshly. She was not such a fool as to believe in it now! She had learned to see

  the world for what it was, and knew that love was just something to be written of by dreamers and

  poets.

  She had been taught a hard lesson, and now she had her sister's experience to remind her. If Olivia

  had been so hurt that she was driven to do something that she must know would ruin her in the eyes

  of the world... What a despicable man Lord Ravensden must be!

  'Oh, you wicked, wicked man,' she muttered as she finished dressing and prepared to go down for

  dinner. 'I declare you deserve to be boiled in oil for what you have done!'

  Lord Ravensden had begun to equate with the Marquis of Sywell in her mind. After her

  uncomfortable escape from injury that evening, Beatrice was inclined to think all the tales of him

  were true! And Lord Ravensden not much better.

  A moment's reflection must have told her this was hardly likely to be true, for her sister would

  surely not even have entertained the idea of marriage to such a man. She was the indulged adopted

  daughter of loving parents, and had she said from the start that she could not like their heir, would

  surely have been excused from marrying him. It was the shock and the scandal of her having jilted

  her fiancé that had upset them.

  However, Beatrice was not thinking like herself that evening. The double shock had made her

  somehow uneasy. She had the oddest notion that something terrible had either happened or was

  about to... something that might affect not only her and her sister's lives, but that of many others in

  the four villages.

  The scream she had heard that night before the Marquis came rushing upon her...it had sounded

  evil. Barely human. Was it an omen of something?

  After hearing it, she had come home to receive her sister's letter. Of course the scream could have

  nothing to do with that...and yet the feeling that the lives of many people were about to change was

  strong in her. A cold chill trickled down her spine as she wondered at herself. Never before had

  she experienced such a feeling...was it what people sometimes called a premonition?

  Do not be foolish, Beatrice, she scolded herself mentally. Whatever would Papa say to such an

  illogical supposition?

  Her dear papa would, she felt sure, give her a lecture upon the improbability of there being

  anything behind her feelings other than mere superstition, and of course he would be perfectly

  right.

  Shaking her head, her hair now neatly confined in a sleek chignon, she dismissed her fears. There

 
; had been something about the atmosphere at the Abbey that night, but perhaps all old buildings

  with a history of mystery and violence would give out similar vibes if one visited them alone and

  at dusk.

  If Beatrice had been superstitious, she would have said that her experience that evening was a

  warning— a sign from the ghosts of long dead monks—but she was not fanciful. She knew that

  what she had heard was most likely the cry of a wounded animal. Like the practical girl she was,

  she dismissed the idea of warnings and premonitions as nonsense, laughed at her own fancies and

  went downstairs to eat a hearty meal.

  'Ravensden, you are an almighty fool, and should be ashamed of yourself! Heaven only knows

  how you are to extricate yourself from this mess.'

  Gabriel Frederick Harold Ravensden, known as Harry to a very few, Ravensden to most,

  contemplated his image in his dressing-mirror and found himself disliking what he saw more than

  ever before. It was the morning of the thirty-first of October, and he was standing in the

  bedchamber of his house in Portland Place. What a damned ass he had been! He ought to be boiled

  in oil, then flayed until his bones showed through.

  He grinned at the thought, wondering if it should really be the other way round to inflict the

  maximum punishment, then the smile was wiped clean as he remembered it was his damnable love

  of the ridiculous that had got them all into this mess in the first place.

  'Did you say something, milord?' Beckett asked, coming into the room with a pile of starched

  neckcloths in anticipation of his lordship's likely need. 'Will you be wearing the new blue coat

  this morning?'

  'What? Oh, I'm not sure,' Harry said. 'No, I think something simpler—more suitable for riding.'

  His man nodded, giving no sign that he thought the request surprising since his master had returned

  to town only the previous evening. He offered a fine green cloth, which was accepted by his

  master with an abstracted air. An unusual disinterest in a man famed for his taste and elegance in

  all matters of both dress and manners.

  'You may leave me,' Harry said, after he had been helped into his coat, having tied a simple knot

  in the first neckcloth from the pile. 'I shall call you if I need you.'

  'Yes, milord.'

  Beckett inclined his head and retired to the dressing-room to sigh over the state of his lordship's

  boots after his return from the country, and Harry returned to the thorny problem on his mind.

  He should in all conscience have told his distant cousin to go to hell the minute the marriage was

  suggested to him. Yet the beautiful Miss Olivia Roade Burton had amused him with her pouts and

  frowns. She had been the unrivalled success of the Season, and, having been thoroughly spoiled

  all her life, was inclined to be a little wayward.

  However, her manners were so charming, her face so lovely, that he had been determined to win

  her favours. He had found the chase diverting, and thought he might like to have her for his wife—

  and a wife he must certainly have before too many months had passed.

  'A damned, heavy-footed, crass idiot!' Harry muttered, remembering the letter he had so recently

  received from his fiancée. 'This business is of your own making...'

  At four-and-thirty, he imagined he was still capable of giving his wife the son he so badly needed,

  but it would not do to leave it much later—unless he wanted the abominable Peregrine to inherit

  his own estate and that of Lord Burton. Both he and Lord Burton were agreed that such an outcome

  would not be acceptable to either of them—though at the moment they were agreeing on little else.

  Indeed, they had parted in acrimony. Had Harry not been a gentleman, he would probably have

  knocked the man down. He frowned as he recalled their conversation of the previous evening.

  'An infamous thing, sir,' Harry had accused. 'To abandon a girl you have lavished with affection. I

  do not understand how you could turn her out. Surely you will reconsider?'

  'She has been utterly spoilt,' Lord Burton replied. 'I have sent her to her family in

  Northamptonshire. Let her see how she likes living in obscurity.'

  'Northamptonshire of all places! Good grief, man, it is the back of beyond, and must be purgatory

  for a young lady of fashion, who has been used to mixing in the best circles. Olivia will be bored

  out of her mind within a week!'

  'I shall not reconsider until she remembers her duty to me,' Lord Burton had declared. 'I have cut

  off her allowance and shall disinherit her altogether if she does not admit her fault and apologise

  to us both.'

  'I think that it is rather we who should apologise to her.'

  After that, their conversation had regrettably gone downhill.

  Harry was furious. Burton's conduct was despicable—and he, Harry Ravensden, had played a

  major part in the downfall of a very lovely young woman!

  A careless remark in a gentleman's club, overheard by some malicious tongue—and he imagined

  he could guess the owner of that tongue! If he were not much mistaken, it was his cousin Peregrine

  Quindon who had started the vicious tale circulating. It was a wicked piece of mischief, and

  Peregrine would hear from him at some point in the future!

  Olivia had clearly been hurt by some other young lady's glee in the fact that her marriage was,

  after all, merely one of convenience, that despite her glittering Season, and being the toast of

  London society, her bridegroom was marrying her only to oblige her adopted father. She had

  reacted in a very natural way, and had written him a stilted letter, telling him that she had decided

  she could not marry him, which he had received only on his return to town—by which time the

  scandal had broken and was being whispered of all over London.

  Harry cursed the misfortune that had taken him from town. He had been summoned urgently to his

  estates in the north, a journey there and back of several days. Had he been in London, he might

  have seen Olivia, explained that he did indeed have a very high regard for her, and was honoured

  that she had accepted him—as he truly was.

  Perhaps he had not fallen in love in the true romantic sense—but Harry did not really believe in

  that kind of love. He had experienced passion often enough, and also a deep affection for his

  friends, but never total, heart-stopping love.

  He enjoyed the company of intelligent women. His best friend's wife was an exceptional woman,

  and he was very fond of Lady Dawlish. He had often envied Percy his happy home life, but had so

  far failed to find a lady he could admire as much as Merry Dawlish, who laughed a lot and

  seemed to enjoy life hugely in her own inimitable way. Even so, he had felt something for Olivia,

  and he had certainly not intended the tragedy that his carelessness had caused. Indeed, it grieved

  him that she had been put in such a position, for without fortune and friends to stand by her, she

  was ruined.

  So what was he going to do about it? Having just returned from the country, he had little

  inclination to return there—and to Northamptonshire! Nothing interesting ever happened in such

  places.

  Harry's besetting sin was that he was easily bored. Indeed, he was often plagued by a soul-

  destroying tedium, which had come upon him when his father's death forced him to give up the

  army life he had enjoyed for a
brief period, and return to care for his estates. He was a good

  master and did not neglect his land or his people, but he was aware of something missing in his

  life.

  He preferred living in town, where he was more likely to find stimulating company, and would not

  have minded so much if Olivia had gone to Bath or Brighton, but this village...what was it called?

  Ah yes, Abbot Giles. It was bound to be full of dull-witted gentry and lusty country wenches.

  Harry's eye did not brighten at the thought of buxom wenches. He was famed for his taste in

  cyprians, and the mistresses he had kept whenever it suited him had always possessed their full

  measure of both beauty and wit. He believed the one thing that had prevented him from giving his

  whole heart to Olivia was that she did not seem to share his love of the ridiculous. She had found

  some of his remarks either hurtful or bewildering. Harry thought wistfully that it would be

  pleasant to have a woman by one's side who could give as good as she got, who wasn't afraid to

  stand up to him.

  'What an odd character you are to be sure,' Harry told his reflection. It was a severe fault in him

  that he could not long be pleased by beautiful young women, unless they were also amusing.

  Harry frowned at his own thoughts. It was not as if he were hiding some secret tragedy. His

  mother was still living, and the sweetest creature alive—but she had not been in love with his

  father, nor his father with her. Both had carried on separate lives, taking and discarding lovers

  without hurting the other. Indeed, they had been the best of friends. Harry believed he must be like

  his mother, who seemed not to treat anything seriously, and was besides being the sweetest, the

  most provoking of females.

  No matter! He was a man of his word. He had given his word to Olivia, and the fact that she had

  jilted him made no difference. He must go after her, try to persuade her that he was not so very

  terrible. As his wife, she would be readmitted to the society that had cast her off—and that surely

  must be better than the fate which awaited her now.

  'Beckett...' he called, making up his mind suddenly. 'Put up a change of clothing for me. I am going

  out of town for a few days.'

  'Yes, milord,' said his valet, coming in. 'May one inquire where we are going?'