Mary Brendan – The Silver Squire (страница 2)

She must not be browbeaten! she exhorted herself. She deserved better! Marriage to a man such as this would destroy her. The very idea was galling when she knew she could have attracted a worthier gentleman had she, in her prime, taken pains to court attention and flirt as other debutantes did. She had rebuffed several adequate suitors because she felt incapable of loving them. With arrogant idealism, she had determined to settle for nothing less than absolute bliss.

A few paying court had been pleasant enough and would have shown her kindness and respect. A sharp stab of guilt and regret…and ultimate understanding…pierced her. She now knew why her mother had ceaselessly nagged about security and status and marriage. It had been to protect her only child from a time such as this, when the only thing of value her irresponsible husband had left was his daughter.

Emma’s tawny gaze raked over the side of the dark profile presented to her. Oh, Jarrett Dashwood was handsome enough in his way, if rather swarthy of countenance. His black hair was glossy and neatly styled. He was of medium height and a little stocky but his shoulder breadth was derived from muscular strength rather than portliness. His nose was a little sharp and hooked and his mouth too sensually fleshy, but overall he held the appearance of a dignified gentleman in his thirties. No stranger would have guessed that his wealth had come from plantation crops produced with barbaric slaving or that nearer to home he had a reputation as an insatiable lecher whom, gossip had it, beat inept mistresses. Even within the small, staid circle in which she socialised, Dashwood’s meanness, his ruthlessness, his wealth were discussed with terrified curiosity and censure.

She had been reared with the consequences of her father’s drunken antics, listening to her mother’s sibilant stricture as yet another pile of merchants’ bills went unpaid. Yet always they had survived. A business deal came good, a wager turned up trumps, a sympathetic friend loaned money at a good rate. Teetering on the brink of disaster, they had always managed to sidestep the abyss and find solid ground again.

To her shame, she realised she, too, had become complacent. When recent arguments between her parents had become exceptionally heated, she had simply retreated to the sanctuary of her room and a book. When meals had become meagre, she’d eaten less. When her maid had been dispensed with last month she had sadly bidden Rosie farewell with a small gift and tended to her own needs. Part of her had known disaster was again threatening but subconsciously she had trusted fate would again make it right.

Two nights ago when her parents had sent for her to join them in the parlour, she’d realised Lady Luck had finally deserted them. Her papa would not meet her eyes. Her mother had fidgeted ceaselessly on the chair-edge, and their unease had chilled her skin. Yet never had she imagined they would sacrifice her so callously in a bid to buy her father’s extravagance another reprieve.

A marriage must be made, her mother had firmly decreed, while her papa had mumbled incoherent assent and blotted at his face with his handkerchief. Nothing Emma had suggested about further economies or a little time to think had made the slightest difference. And now she knew why: the marriage contract was already sealed and money had changed hands.

The sound of the door cracking closed as Jarrett Dashwood left started Emma from her miserable memories.

‘Well, miss, you’ve done your work well!’ was hissed shrilly at her. ‘Do you know what awaits us all now? Your spurned suitor has just promised your father an indefinite sojourn in the Fleet…and for us an indefinite sojourn in the nearest gutter. We are ruined…finished!’

‘Mama, how could you consider turning me over to such an odious individual?’ was Emma’s broken, soft rejoinder. ‘A marriage I would have agreed to. But you must allow me a man of my own choosing: someone I can at least respect, if not love. You know of Dashwood’s reputation…assuredly better than I. He is reviled as a slave-master…and a whore-master. Yet you would force me to live my remaining years with him?’

‘Some of the noblest, richest families in the land are built out of Jamaica, and have philanderers at their head. Are you to find fault with all of those too?’ her mother impatiently snapped. ‘You quibble unnecessarily, Emma!’

Margaret’s tone honeyed persuasively. ‘As his wife you would enjoy a life of pampered luxury. He would treat you well: after all, we all know how greatly he believes he has appearances to keep. Why do you think such a man would settle on purchasing himself a sedate spinster? He wants her virtue and gentility and the assurance she is never likely to humiliate him by shamelessly gadding about. Once you had provided his required heir or two, what more use would he make of you? A man so rich has his pick of beautiful courtesans to quench his lust.’ A derisive, summarising stare preceded, ‘You are fortunate to get any offers when you have so little to recommend you. You’re too thin, you’re too old—despite the fact you look like a gauche adolescent with your scrubbed complexion and buttoned-up gown. Even your hair has lost its rich hue as you’ve aged…your eyes too. I swear you’re now all tea when once you were chocolate. Your musical accomplishments, I suppose, are adequate…’ she allowed on a sniff.

‘I hardly think Jarrett Dashwood is to be swayed to stay home by cosy musical evenings about the pianoforte, Mama,’ Emma mentioned on a sour laugh.

‘How fortunate for you! In his absence, you could nestle into domesticity with a child on your lap and one of those soppy romantic novels in your hand.’

An impatient sigh escaped Emma at the ridiculously wholesome imagery. ‘It might not be all so bleak for us, Mama,’ she cajoled. ‘You are right—Mr Dashwood does covet status and respectability. He will never sue Papa for fraud. Papa is known to be ailing. Dashwood would hate being seen as vindictive enough to dun a sick man without conceding him time to make amends. He will allow us a while to repay him…you’ll see.’ Warming to her theme, she enthused, ‘I can work. I am educated well enough to be a governess…or a companion to a wealthy lady…or a housekeeper…’

‘Housekeeper?’ her mother choked, outraged. ‘You have been gently reared! The success of your twenty-fourth-birthday ball was the talk of the ton for months afterwards. Had you deported yourself more…more becomingly to the gentlemen present that evening, you would have been wed these past three years or more and no longer draining us with the expense of your keep.’

As though unable to contain her fury or bitterness, Margaret’s lips and eyes narrowed in exasperation. She approached her daughter on wobbly, stiff legs in the manner of a mechanised rickety toy. As she passed a side-table something caught a glaring eye and she grabbed up the leather-bound volume and looked at it with intense loathing. ‘All this ridiculous daydreaming you do of love and heroes and happy endings…it is a shameful indulgence and not to be borne, Emma.’ She snorted a sour laugh. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged,’ she parodied in a shaking voice, ‘that a wilful, selfish daughter of seven and twenty will prove to be a tiresome burden on her parents. Her presence should no longer be tolerated!’ The volume of Jane Austen’s work was skimmed abruptly towards her, and with chance accuracy smacked a hefty blow on a slender shoulder.

With a moan of recalled pain, Emma Worthington pushed herself upright in bed, her breathing fast and erratic and a pale hand instinctively seeking the tender bruise below her collarbone. Her head drooped forward, thick tan hair coating the sides of her face, as she waited for the pounding of her heart to steady and the vividness of the dream to recede a little.

A hand fumbled out to the unfamiliar table at the side of the alien bed and sought the candle, drawing it close to gain its weak, guttering light. She held it aloft in an unsteady hand. As she shook back tresses from her blanching face, wide, darting eyes surveyed the moon-striped tavern chamber, every gloomy nook scoured for spooks and intruders. But she knew it was nothing other than inner demons that had startled her awake.

The dream had so sharply, so accurately retraced events of two days ago that she might have been back in the drawing room of Rosemary House, facing her mother’s spite and Jarrett Dashwood’s menacing presence.

She drew her knees up close to her body, her slender arms hugged about them for warmth and comfort and she laid a cold shivering cheek atop them. A bar of silver light bathed her bent head as the moon again escaped scudding cloud. It shifted to incorporate her entwined fingers and she stretched them towards the pearlescence. Replacing the candle on the table, she quit the hard bed and padded softly over cold wood to the small leaded window.

A velvet night sky was visible through a net of shimmering nimbus. Her gaze swept the courtyard below. Immediately she shrank back. Her eyes had, by chance, located a courting couple by an outbuilding, their faces and bodies fused together. Compelled by an uncontrollable fascination, Emma slipped back, seeking again the shadowy outline of a tall man and a woman wedged between his sturdy body and the stable brickwork. She whirled away, her face stinging with hot self-disgust, and scrambled back into bed.