The House of Happiness Page 11

  Eugenia shuddered. Had he deliberately chosen the word ‘execution’ to alarm her? That was suddenly how she herself viewed the event – an execution, not a celebration. Suddenly she wished with all her might not to be allied to this man, displaying now a cruel forcefulness of manner at which she had never previously guessed.

  “B-but is that w-wise, my lord? The invitations are already sent out. And m-my mother is making my dress herself and has only time enough to finish it as it is. And m-my portrait is nowhere near finished.”

  This last reason was a mistake, for it seemed to inflame the Marquis still further.

  “Do you forget your position, madam?” he roared. “You are beholden to me for everything now. Most of all for ‘Paragon.’ Where would you and your mother go if I turned you out? Back to the charity of your great-aunt?”

  With a strength she never suspected she possessed, Eugenia pummelled at the Marquis’s breast until with an oath he threw her violently aside, so violently she nearly fell. Steadying herself on the edge of the desk, she summoned the breath necessary to reply.

  “You – cannot evict us from ‘Paragon’. It is – mine now. You gave me the key.”

  “So I did, madam. But I did not give you this.” Pulling open a drawer in the desk, the Marquis threw a document on the table.

  “W-what is that?”

  “The deeds. The deeds that prove your ownership.”

  Without thinking, Eugenia reached for the document, but to her dismay the Marquis snatched it up and began to shred it before her very eyes.

  Faced with this uncharacteristic act of cruelty, Eugenia began to back out of the room.

  “You are a brute, sir. I would not have guessed it. A brute.”

  The Marquis grew pale at her words. With a groan he plunged his head into his hands.

  “If I am, madam, it is your doing,” he murmured in despair. Eugenia did not hear these last words, for she had turned and fled from the room.

  Not wishing to ask for the carriage, she was forced to return on foot to ‘Paragon’. She half-ran, half stumbled, her skirt soon hemmed in mud, her slippers soaked.

  All the while her thoughts were racing. She would not give in to the Marquis, she would not! His behaviour was outrageous. Passionate, certainly, as she might once have wished, but – outrageous. She would not remain a moment longer on the estate, even if it meant quitting her beloved ‘Paragon’.

  She burst through the door of the cottage determined to inform her mother that they were leaving. But when, through the open door of the parlour, she caught sight of her mother seated happily before the fire, she wavered. The flames in the grate leapt high, devouring a mound of logs such as would never have been provided under Great-Aunt Cloris’s parsimonious regime at Craven Hill.

  Looking slowly around the room, Eugenia realised the extent to which her mother had made herself at home. This was a warm and cosy kingdom over which Mrs. Dovedale might comfortably reign. How could Eugenia take this away from her?

  She felt as though her heart was a kite tugged hither and thither in the wind.

  Gregor or the Marquis? One final look at her mother gave her the answer.

  With a sigh she trailed up to her room. She sat down at her desk and began to write. It was a letter to the Marquis and in it she humbly agreed to his wish to bring the date of their wedding forward.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Eugenia leaned her hand on her chin and gazed out from the carriage that was bearing herself and the Marquis to the lakeside hotel where they were to spend their honeymoon.

  They had been married that very morning. Mrs. Dovedale had been puzzled that the date had been brought forward, but secretly relieved. She had begun to fear, considering the Marquis’s change of attitude towards Eugenia, that the marriage might never take place at all.

  Eugenia found no opportunity to discover directly what Gregor thought of the change of plans. The Marquis had quietly indicated to Mrs. Dovedale that he no longer felt it appropriate for Bridget to act as chaperone during the sittings. Mrs. Dovedale, paling at the implication, quickly agreed that from then only she herself or Great-Aunt Cloris would maintain the role.

  Gregor, prevented by these two stern guardians from approaching Eugenia, made his displeasure felt by ignoring her completely. He painted on in sullen, frenetic silence. Eugenia was miserable but resigned.

  Indirectly, of course, Gregor used Bridget to convey to Eugenia the full extent of his disappointment. The maid handed Eugenia a piece of paper folded into two.

  ‘My heart breaks as only a Russian heart breaks. Run away with me before it is too late. How can you set money against the thrill of passion in the blood?’

  This letter, too, joined his two previous letters in Eugenia’s reticule. She promised herself that she would dispose of all three – soon!

  She dared not reply by pen, but she tremblingly asked Bridget to explain to Gregor that she felt it incumbent upon her to carry out her duty rather than to pursue her desires.

  “He won’t think much of that, miss,” said Bridget with a hint of contempt. “He don’t hold with all those notions of duty.”

  “No,” sighed Eugenia. “I suppose he doesn’t.”

  She longed for some words of consolation from Bridget, but the maid still stood at the pier glass, as if mesmerised by what she saw there.

  “Gregor said he might paint me next,” she murmured, head on one side. “Do you think I’d be a good – subject – my Lady?”

  The wedding had taken place in the Chapel at Buckbury Abbey. Mrs. Dovedale and Great-Aunt Cloris drove in the gig. Eugenia had requested that if the day was fine she be allowed to ride side-saddle on Bud to the venue.

  After their heated encounter at Buckbury and Eugenia’s subsequent capitulation, the Marquis had taken himself off to London. He seemed to have no further appetite for the wedding preparations. He did not return from London until two days before the event and was accompanied by Lord and Lady Granton. Lord Granton had agreed to give Eugenia away.

  In his absence Eugenia had plenty of time to mull over her fiancé’s uncharacteristic behaviour. She wondered guiltily how much her own emotional vacillation – obviously more evident to her fiancé than she had realised – had contributed to the intensity of his outburst. There were times when the memory of the encounter made her shiver. What manner of man was she was about to wed?

  She turned her head now and threw a glance at the Marquis where he sat in the carriage. He was opposite, leaning his head back against the upholstery, fingers folded over his silver-topped cane. She could not decipher his expression – nor had she been able to do so that morning when she had ridden up to the steps of the Chapel where he and Lord Granton waited.

  It had been a frosty morning. Hoar lay over every bough and every blade. The whole day seemed to glisten under a merciless white winter sun.

  Her ivory dress lay in a sheath about her, like the petals of a white rose. A white ermine stole covered her shoulders. Silver clasps fastened her golden hair and these glinted as she approached. A silver band held her half veil in place.

  The Marquis caught his breath at the sight of her, but his stern expression did not flicker. His eyes smouldered broodingly as she ascended the Chapel steps on the arm of Lord Granton.

  Only at the moment when the officiating parson pronounced them man and wife and the Marquis lifted the veil to kiss her lips, did his pupils, meltingly dark, indicate his satisfaction at the binding of Eugenia to him.

  Now they were on their way to the place where she would yield her entire person.

  She marvelled at how calm she felt.

  ‘Will I still feel like me tomorrow?’ she asked herself. She turned back and regarded her reflection in the carriage window. Her eyes stared back, wide and wondering.

  Eugenia settled back in her seat. Again she watched the landscape roll by beyond the window. Dusk was falling and the hills were mere silhouettes against the darkening sky.

  They had been travellin
g for hours, away from Buckbury, away from her mother and great-aunt and Lord and Lady Granton. Away from Gregor. She felt a wave of loneliness and homesickness engulf her, even though she knew that soon few of these people would themselves remain on the estate.

  By tomorrow, Lord and Lady Granton would be on their way back to London. Mrs. Dovedale and Great-Aunt Cloris would travel with them, but within a month they would be en route to Italy to undertake a tour of that country, a tour proposed and paid for by the Marquis.

  They would be accompanied by a new lady’s maid, one who had worked for Lady Granton, because Eugenia had insisted that Bridget act as her lady’s maid during the honeymoon.

  She had not informed the Marquis until his return from London. He was understandably reluctant to agree to the presence of Bridget on his honeymoon, but Eugenia was so adamant, citing her need for a familiar face on this, her first trip away from her mother, that at last he gave his grudging approval.

  Eugenia could not of course divulge her real reason for wishing Bridget to come away with her, rather than continue to attend Great-Aunt Cloris. The truth was she could not bear to think of Bridget in London and at Craven Hill, which establishment Gregor was bound to visit during the period that Great-Aunt Cloris and Mrs. Dovedale were present before their trip abroad.

  There was no doubt that Bridget had guessed at the reason for her new appointment. Although she relished the cachet of being maid to the wife of a Marquis, she was resentful that she was not trusted to remain where she would have access to Gregor and he to her. Eugenia had no doubt that the maid would now feel herself free to throw her own cap at the painter.

  Gregor would be the last of the company to leave Buckbury. He had claimed he needed an extra week to work on the portrait of Eugenia, which he had not been able to complete in time for the wedding once the date had been brought forward. The Marquis agreed to Gregor’s request to stay on, but added that he wanted to see neither hide nor hair of him by the time he and Eugenia returned from honeymoon.

  Gregor had given a mocking bow and promised to have departed well before then.

  ‘My lost love,’ thought Eugenia with a catch in her throat before shaking herself.

  ‘You are married. You must stop this dream of a different kind of love.’

  Beyond the window a moon was rising out of a great expanse of dim water. Lake Caldermere. They must be near the hotel!

  Soon the carriage was swinging in through great iron gates and bowling along a dark, elm-lined drive. Eugenia’s heart began to beat faster. She placed her hand on her breast, breathing deeply.

  “My Lady?” asked the Marquis anxiously.

  She shook her head. “I am – all right, my Lord.”

  When the carriage came to a halt and the steps were lowered, the Marquis handed her down with great solicitude.

  The hotel was luxurious but discreet. Their luggage was carried along thick carpets to their suite on the first floor. Bridget was escorted to the room assigned to her along the corridor and the Marquis and Eugenia stood alone in their own chamber.

  Eugenia’s eyes settled on the richly canopied bed that was the main feature. She felt faint as she imagined what must soon take place.

  The Marquis noticed and drew her gently to him.

  “There is nothing to fear,” he said, with a tenderness in his voice that she had not heard for some time. “I – could never hurt you in any way, my dearest.”

  “Y-you did before,” Eugenia reminded him, lowering her gaze.

  “Ah.” The Marquis was silent for a moment. “It galls me to think of it. But I was driven by a terrible fear.”

  “Fear, my Lord?”

  “That this present joy might never be mine! But come. You are tired and surely hungry. I am not such a – brute – as to put my pleasure before your well-being! I shall leave you while you change for supper.”

  Eugenia was grateful for the faint twinkle that she detected in the Marquis’s eye as he bowed low and departed.

  Once alone, however, she sank into despondency. It was with a great effort that she rang for Bridget to help her dress for supper.

  Despite the fact that she had not been able to eat breakfast or indeed take any refreshment during the long journey, Eugenia found herself at table merely toying with the salmon laid before her. It was only at the Marquis’s urging that she finally forced herself to swallow a few mouthfuls, if only to placate him.

  He gently teased her, wondering aloud whether this was the same girl who had flown eagerly from dish to dish when he had first met her at Lady Granton’s soirée, and she marvelled at the way in which he had begun to revert to his old self.

  She sensed his secret hope – that at last having her all to himself, removed from the seductive presence of Gregor, he might encounter no further obstacle to winning her full affections.

  It made her uncomfortable to dwell on this thought and so she began to ask him about his former life. Eventually she touched on the question of the Countess whom, all those years ago, he had followed to France.

  The Marquis, interpreting her apparent interest as the usual wifely desire to discover the secrets of her husband’s romantic past, smiled at her. He twirled his wine glass in his hand as he replied,

  “My reasons for travelling to France – and then remaining there – I have explained. I did not wish my wards to be torn from their native land after being so cruelly orphaned. But, yes, I was drawn to the Countess, though on closer acquaintance I found her to be – not the woman I had hoped.”

  “Oh.” Eugenia’s hand strayed to her napkin, the corner of which she began to fold and refold nervously.

  “Eugenia,” explained the Marquis gently, “a man of my experience has – in the common way of things – become connected with many women who appealed to me in one way or another.

  But my heart never found a home until I laid eyes on you again in London. Perhaps I had always been secretly in love with the little girl who twirled for me in her new dress at the Buckbury Christmas party, all those years ago!”

  Eugenia scrunched the napkin tight in her fist. She wanted to respond in kind, to offer up a similar hint of affectionate memory, but she felt paralysed. At last she threw down the napkin and pushed her plate away.

  “I – I cannot eat any more – my Lord.”

  The Marquis dropped his eyes and was silent for a moment. Then he pulled back his chair. “It has been a long day,” he said. “Let us retire to our rooms.”

  Seated a little later before the dressing table while Bridget brushed her hair, Eugenia stared at herself in the mirror. The Marquis had gone to his dressing room, leaving her alone with her maid to prepare herself for the night ahead. Her huge eyes glimmered in the candlelight with unshed tears.

  “Don’t you cry, miss,” said Bridget hotly. “You plumped for this, so you did. You’ve upset a lot of plans, so you have.”

  Eugenia tasted salt as the tear reached her lip. “What do you mean by ‘plans’, Bridget?”

  Bridget opened her mouth to reply and then checked herself. “Nuthin,” she muttered. “Only – I’m sorry you ain’t going to know what real passion is!”

  “Do you know, Bridget?” asked Eugenia mournfully.

  Bridget leaned in close. “It’s like nothing else at all. Your flesh is all fever and you want to die, so you do.”

  The maid straightened quickly as the Marquis entered. Eugenia, quickly wiping the tear from her lip, made a tremulous nod of dismissal and Bridget hurried away.

  The Marquis advanced. Eugenia could see his reflection in the mirror and could see the way he hungrily devoured her image, taking in the curve of her breasts beneath her silk negligee and the milky white pallor of her flesh in the flickering candlelight. Her red lips parted in painful anticipation. She felt a wave of guilt that she could not return his ardour in kind.

  The Marquis caught up a handful of her golden hair and raised it to his lips. Eugenia stiffened as he then leaned forward and delicately, tenderly kissed the
exposed nape of her neck.

  With that, Eugenia – tired, exhausted and terrified of the unending conflict within her bosom – plunged her face in her hands and burst into tears.

  She felt the Marquis pull away. After a moment she raised her tear-stained face to the mirror. The Marquis stood like someone struck through the heart. The sadness in his eyes was unmistakable.

  Eugenia tried to curb her sobs.

  “M-my Lord – !”

  The Marquis raised a weary hand. “Say nothing, madam. All is only too clear.”

  “But my Lord – “

  With a bitter smile, the Marquis moved away.

  “Good­ night, madam.”

  Eugenia stared after him wonderingly. “You – you are leaving me here, sir?”

  The Marquis paused at the door. “Madam,” he said softly, “I will never take to my bed a woman whose heart so obviously lies elsewhere.”

  With that, he was gone. Eugenia stared after him, hand to her heaving breast, alone to muse upon the consequences of her too divided heart.

  *

  She was a wife yet not a wife. A wife in name only. How she lamented this unnatural state of suspension. Morning after morning she rumpled the bedclothes to look as if both she and the Marquis had slept there. She could not bear for Bridget to know the truth, which was that the Marquis spent every night on the sofa in his dressing room.

  During the day he proved as polite and attentive to Eugenia as she supposed it was possible for him to be in the circumstances. They sometimes took walks together around the lake or drove to see some ruin or great house in the area. That these excursions were undertaken in near total silence was a fact unsuspected by Bridget or the Marquis’s valet or anyone else at the hotel.

  Most of the time the Marquis left her very much to herself. He went hunting with the proprietor of the hotel or fished on the lake.

  Eugenia tried to pretend to Bridget that she welcomed these periods of solitude. Alone in her room, she attempted to read or embroider.

  At supper she and the Marquis exchanged pleasantries and nothing more. The Marquis’s forbidding brow rendered her too timid to broach the subject of their conjugal relations.