The Deserted Bride

He dismissed the Steward when he reached the bottom of the stairway which led into the entrance hall, and pushed Charles into a room which opened off it.

“Now, Charles, what the devil has been going on here? The man I thought was my Comptroller is a blinking idiot, and my lady wife is not only running the household and the estates, but is riding around the countryside dressed like a milkmaid inviting seduction.”

Charles said, choking with laughter, “Your face, Drew, your face when you saw that the nymph you tried to seduce was your own wife! A beauty, though, a very Helen of Troy. Whyever did you tell me that she was plain?” and he began to laugh helplessly.

Drew grasped his cousin by the shoulders and turned him so that they were face to face, eye to eye. Charles was still trying to control his amusement, whilst Drew was as grim as Hercules about to embark on another of his labours—as Charles told him later.

He hissed at his cousin, “If you laugh, Charles, I shall kill you! That is a promise, not a threat!”

Charles rearranged his face, and said, as solemnly as he could, “What, laugh? I laugh? No, no, I merely choked a little—from surprise, you understand. This is a grave matter, a very grave matter, m’lord.”

“And do not m’lord me, either. Damnation and Hell surround me and every devil with a pitchfork is sticking me with it. How in God’s name was I to know that that wanton nymph in the woods yesterday was my wife? And he I thought her brother—in Hell’s name, who was he? Was she wantoning with him in the greenwood? I can believe anything of her after the way in which she taunted me just now.”

“Most strange,” agreed Charles, his face solemn, but his eyes had an evil glint in them as he savoured Drew’s discomfiture. “As I said earlier, repute had it that she was plain, and you did not deny it, on the contrary.”

“Hell’s teeth,” roared Drew who had lost all his usual calm control and the measured speech which went with it. “She resembled naught so much as a monkey ten years agone. What alchemist has she visited to turn herself into such a…such…?” He ran out of words.

“A pearl?” Charles finished for him, still as grave as a parson.

Drew raved on. “I was prepared to be patient with her, and kind, because she was so plain, you understand. But what shall I do with her now that she has caught me trying to seduce a woodland maiden who turned out to be my own wife? She never said a word to enlighten me, into the bargain, but inwardly enjoyed the jest at my expense. And after that, she had the impudence to twit me with her chastity—and my lack of it.”

Charles could not help himself. He began to laugh until the tears ran down his face. “Confess, Drew, what a fine jest you would think this if it were happening to someone else!”

Drew stared at him, and then, as his cousin’s words struck home, he began to laugh himself at the sheer absurdity of it all. Laughter dissipated his rage—it slunk back again into its kennel. When he spoke, his voice showed that he had regained his usual cold command.

“Merriment purges all, Philip Sidney once said. You were right to laugh, Charles, at the spectacle of my High Mightiness brought low by a woman. Now I am myself again, and by my faith, the best way to treat my lady wife will be to behave as though yesterday was a dream—which I did not share. More, I shall sort out her deception over the ruling of Atherington in such a way as will offer her no satisfaction, no chance to enjoy any more secret jests at my expense.”

“Oh, bravo! That is more like yourself, Drew. Come, let us to the feast.”

“Aye, Charles, where I shall behave like a grave and reverend signor who would never attempt to tumble a chance-met wench in the greenwood!”

Chapter Four

“Bess, my dear, I cannot understand how it was that your husband did not know of Sir Braithwaitte’s illness! I distinctly remember that he was informed. You said that he might have forgotten—but how could he forget a matter of such importance? It would be most careless of him, and he does not appear to be a careless person. I was always surprised that he appointed no one in my husband’s place, but allowed you to take over the governance of Atherington!”

Aunt Hamilton had been twittering away to Bess on this undesirable subject ever since Drew and Charles had left them. Walter Hampden, her Chief Comptroller, had also approached her, frowning heavily, as they awaited her husband’s return to the Great Parlour. Bess had silenced him by immediately turning on her heel and ordering Gilbert to arrange for goblets of sack to be brought through to the company, ostensibly to help them while away the time until dinner, but actually to keep them from questioning her.

Even so, Walter, a neglected goblet of wine in his hand, had not taken this none-too-subtle hint, but began immediately to question her, saying, “Madam, I would have a word with you. I remember that we wrote several times to Lord Exford informing him of Sir Braithwaite’s sad mishap, so how was it that he knew nothing of it? Most strange, most strange.” He shook his old head in wonderment as he finished.

He had been Sir Braithwaite’s trusted right-hand man, and had continued as Bess’s after it was plain that Lord Exford, by his silence, seemed happy for matters to continue as they were, without sending his man to oversee Atherington’s affairs.

Atherington, under his and Bess’s guidance, with the help of the Council, had subsequently become so prosperous that after a time Walter had ceased to question this somewhat odd arrangement. As Bess had feared, however, Drew’s apparent ignorance of the truth about Sir Braithwaite’s condition was beginning to trouble him.

“Oh, I am sure that this is but a misunderstanding,” Bess proclaimed feverishly, wishing that Drew would return so that they could repair to the Great Hall and set about the banquet. Her husband could scarcely expect her to begin discussing matters of business whilst they were eating and drinking their way through Atherington’s bounty.

His grim face, however, when he returned from Sir Braithwaite’s tower room, gave her no reason to expect that she was going to receive much mercy from him, either at the banquet—or anywhere else. His cousin Charles, by contrast, had an expression on his face which showed that one person, at least, was deriving some amusement from the situation.

“I am at your service, madam,” Drew announced. “Bid your Steward to escort us to the Hall.”

He held his hand out to take hers as though nothing was amiss, but his mouth, set in a hard straight line, was an indication that their private life, like their public one, was to be as coldly formal as his voice.

Gilbert the Steward, however, was delighted. If he had a complaint about Lady Bess’s rule, it was that she was too easy in her conduct of it. All the heavily manned little ceremonies which Sir Braithwaite had insisted upon had been done away with. And, since they mostly centred around Gilbert’s affairs, he had felt that his station in the Atherington household had been demeaned.

Plainly his new master thought differently, and so they all processed majestically into the Hall, where pages, at Gilbert’s instructions, ran forward with napkins and bowls of water. The napkins were to protect the guests’ fine clothing, and the water was for them to rinse their hands in after they had eaten of the roast beef, the chickens, the pigs’ trotters and all the other delicacies carried in on great platters by another half-score of obedient pages. The napkins then found their further use in drying wet hands, although some still preferred the old custom of waving them in the air. Gilbert was beside himself with joy.

Not so Bess. She hated ceremony, considering it a waste of precious time. For her, informality was all. She wondered what Drew’s preference was. The fact that he was being so correct in his conduct today was not necessarily a guide to his character if she remembered how lustily—and improperly—he had set about her yesterday!

She stole a look at his noble profile as he sat beside her. It was still grim, and his mouth was set in stern lines. She wondered if she dare try to soften it. She would have to go carefully, for seated as they were in the place of honour in the middle of the long table, all eyes were upon them, save for those few of their senior officers who shared their side of it.

She was about to speak when Drew forestalled her.

“I desire an explanation from you, madam my wife, as to why you did not see fit to inform me of your uncle’s grave and disabling accident.”

So, war had been declared, had it? There was to be no peace over the dinner plates. The best form of defence, Bess had long ago concluded, was attack. She went on to it, keeping her voice low, but firm.

“Not so, m’lord husband. You were kept fully informed. Do try the chicken legs, I beg of you. They are tenderer than most because of the delicate foodstuffs Dame Margery insists on. Meat cannot be tender, she avows, if what is put in the animal to make it grow is tough.” The gaze she turned on Drew was a melting one.

Drew was not melted. “To the devil with Dame Margery—and her chicken legs, too,” he said roughly. “Do not seek to deceive me, wife. I am of the belief that you lied to your Council and to me.”

“Now why should you think that, husband? And it is unkind of you to curse Dame Margery. She is a very hard worker, and loyal to Atherington—as are all my servants.”

“And is she a liar, too? Does she also go running around…?” Drew stopped himself and cursed inwardly. He had not meant to refer to yesterday’s contretemps, and here he was reminding her of it! Not a very clever ploy. In life, as in chess, one did not give the enemy an advantage. He swallowed his words and started again.

“You may be sure that I, and my advisers, will examine your books and documents with the utmost care, and if I find any maladministration, I shall know full well who is to blame.”

Attack! Attack! Trumpets were blowing in Bess’s brain. “And you will not blame yourself, husband—if you do find anything amiss, which I doubt—that for ten long years you have ignored Atherington and left us to our fate? I have been a woman for six full summers, ready to do a wife’s duty, and bear your children. Address your reproaches to the one who deserves them, sir, which is not my good self, but one who is nearer home to you!”

Oh, sweet Lord! Now she had done it. She had lost her temper—as, by his expression, he was losing his. He leaned forward, food forgotten, and said between his teeth, “Do you not fear a day of reckoning, my lady wife? For you should.”

“No more than you should,” returned Bess hardily.

How dare he reproach her, how dare he? Her eyes flashed at him, as they locked with his, stare for stare. Not only their food, but the spectators were forgotten.

“Oh, indeed,” he sneered. “And that youth who was with you yesterday—is all seemly between you?” He had meant to save this for the privacy of their room, but the woman would tempt a saint to misbehave, for even as they wrangled he wanted to fall upon her and have his way with her; the way which he had been denied yestermorn.

For she was temptation itself. How could he be moved by one who was so unlike all the women whom he had favoured so far? She was black, not blonde, her eyes were dark, not blue, her complexion was pale, not rosy, she was not small, but was of a good height—and instead of being meek in speech she had a tongue like the Devil. Nor did she fail to use it at every turn.

By God, it would be a pleasure to master her, to ride her to the Devil who had blessed, nay, cursed her with that tongue. Aye, and beyond him to the lowest pit of Hell where only the demons lurked, forgotten even by their unsavoury Lord! The very thought of using her so was doing cruel and untoward things to his body.

Drew tried to calm himself. He must not let her catch him on the raw every time she spoke.

“I think you mistake a woman’s place, madam. It is to be quiet, to obey her lord, to be meek at all times…”

“I’d as lief be dead!” Bess could not help herself. The words flew out of her, interrupting him in his catalogue of what a good woman should be.

“I have no mind,” she exclaimed in ringing tones which the whole table could hear, “to be like patient Griselda in Master Chaucer’s poem, who pitifully thanks her husband for his mistreatment of her.”

“Nor am I minded to be the husband of a nagging wife, always determined to have the last word.” Drew roared this as though the demons he had conjured up were at his back, prodding him with their pitchforks.

Well, at least formality had flown out of the window and honesty had taken its place, thought Bess, stifling a smile at the sight of all the shocked faces around the table.

Worse, aunt Hamilton was quavering at her, “Oh, my niece, my dear niece, remember that your husband stands in the place of your God—to be obeyed at all times…This is no fashion in which to conduct yourself…and in a public place, too.”

Little though she cared to admit it, Bess knew that aunt Hamilton was right—at least as regards the place in which her differences with her husband ought to be aired.

She gave an abrupt laugh, and put her hand out towards Drew’s, saying, “How now, my lord, let us cry quits for this meal, at least—and shake hands on it. We are not players on a stage, paid to entertain an audience.”

His wife had spoken as frankly and freely as any boy, and her manner was smilingly confident as she did so. The moment—and the relationship between the pair of them—swung in the balance. Drew was aware that he could base his answer on his own masculinity and his consequent right to rule his wife, and thus reject her offer outright. All between them would then lie in ruins. Or, he could forget his husbandly rights, take her offered hand, cry truce—and let the game start again.

Even as he wavered Bess said, still frank and as though she had read his mind, “Come, m’lord, let us set the board out for a new game and forget the old one.”

As though of its own will, and not his, Drew’s hand thrust itself forward, and grasped her smaller one, enclosing it in his where it fitted so warm and sweetly, that he felt his anger leaching out of him.

“Quits,” he said. “But I cannot promise what will happen on another day.”

“No,” shot back Bess. “But then, no more can I!”

“A strange truce,” smiled Drew, determined not to lose his self-control again, “when the two principals who have agreed it are still at war!”

“I am not at war,” announced Bess, picking up one of Dame Margery’s chicken legs and throwing a sideways glance at Drew as she did so. “On the contrary, I am enjoying my dinner, and am consequently at peace.”

Her sideways glance nearly undid Drew, it was so full of fun and mischief. He gave a little groan, and then leaned forward to take the half-eaten chicken leg from her hand and to begin to eat it himself, his eyes on hers. “What does Dame Margery baste her meat with that it has one effect on you, madam, and quite another on me?”

Bess smiled crookedly at him. “Why, you must to the kitchens, sir, and ask her. Though whether she will have an answer to satisfy you, is quite another thing.” Her smile, unknowing to her, was provocation itself.

A witch! A very witch! Had there been a potion in the goblet which the eager page boy had handed to him as he sat down? Only that could explain why she was keeping his hot blood on the boil. Used to meek women, determined to please him, to meet one who met him with defiance—and smiled so sweetly at him in the doing—was having the strongest effect on Drew. He could not wait for the evening, to have her in the Great Bed which was sure to be in the master bedroom above him.

His wife was suffering from the same fever. The beautiful boy who had despised her had turned into a man who stared at her with eager eyes even as he reproved her. He waved his stolen chicken leg at her before eating it slowly, his blue eyes on her face exactly as though it were she whom he was devouring.

Well, Bess knew a game worth two of that! She leaned forward to take his wine glass, lifted it to her lips and drank it as slowly and sensuously as she could, her eyes on his, so slowly that Drew could have sworn he could see the crimson liquid staining her skin as it slid down her throat.

And then, glass in hand, she took his bread and its attendant cheese from the pewter platter which lay between them, and ate that, too. “Tit for tat, my lord,” she murmured. “Your bread, cheese and wine for my leg. A fair exchange? Say Yea—or Nay.”

Aware that his cousin Charles, eyes wide, was avidly watching this little scene, Drew hooded his own eyes, clasped the wrist of the hand which held the wine glass, now half empty, and putting his lips where hers had been, drank from it until all the wine was gone.

“Neither Yea nor Nay, madam, but half and half, and somehere in between. You shall not best me!”

“Nay, sir, but I must try. I am not Griselda.”

Oh, Bess knew that it was unwise to tease him so. But yet she must, and knowing little of the game of love, as yet untouched by a man’s hands or lips, for Tib and the others had worshipped her from afar, how was it that she knew how to drive a man to distraction?

For Bess had no doubt that that was what she was doing, and even as she led him on with one ploy her busy mind, obeying her body’s urgings, was driving her on to another. Some time in the future he would force a reckoning on her, she knew that, and her body throbbed at the very thought. But he was answering her and she must attend.

“Now, that I already know,” Drew murmured, “that you are not Griselda. But are you Mother Eve who has already tempted—and taken—a man to lie on your breast, so knowing are your arts?”

“I have no arts, husband, other than those which Mother Eve gave me when I was born. And no man has known me either. I am as untouched as Eve was when the Lord God took her from Adam’s side.”

Could he believe her, so frank and free was she? He was not to know that all of the Atherington household was watching their lady with the deepest astonishment. They had never seen her behave like this before. But then, she had never sat beside her husband before. Drew, trying to maintain his self-control, shrugged. He would pursue the matter of Tib, and his wife’s familiarity with him, in private.

“Leave that, wife,” he told her curtly. “We have other, more pressing matters, to discuss. After this meal is over we must have an accounting, you, your Council and myself. I shall be most interested to hear an explanation from you all as to why I was never informed of Sir Braithwaite’s incapacity.”

One thing was plain to Bess. For all his easy surface charm—and there was no denying it—her husband was like a determined terrier with a rat in his jaws who would never let go, however much he was distracted, when he had set his mind on obtaining an answer to something which puzzled him.

“Oh, I think that you are mistook over that, sir. These mistakes will happen, will they not?” And now it was Charles Breton, sitting on her left, who received her charming sidelong glance.

“Oh, aye, indeed,” returned Charles, with a humorous duck of his head. “Most like the letter was lost, either on its way to us, or perhaps, after it was received.”

“Very helpful of you, Charles,” commented Drew, his voice dry. “I scarcely think, though, that my wife needs your assistance in explaining away the odd circumstances which appear to surround Atherington’s affairs.”

Thus rebuked, Charles smiled and changed the subject. It would not do to provoke Drew so hard that he lost his temper. Drew scarcely ever did so, but he had been a rare sight on the few occasions when he had lost control of himself. He wondered what it could be that was disturbing his cousin so strongly. Knowing of Atherington’s stalwart Protestantism, he asked a question to which he thought Drew could make no objection.

“Are there are many gentry families around Charnwood, Lady Exford? I had heard in London that there were—and that a number of them held to the old Catholic faith.”

Even as Bess began to reply, Drew swung around sharply to watch her as she spoke. Charles, he was sure, had no knowledge of the real reason why he was visiting Leicestershire, and was therefore, unknowingly, doing him a favour by raising the matter. It would save him from needing to ask such a question himself. He listened with interest as Bess agreed that there were a large number of gentry families in the county, some of whom were Catholic.

“But not so many, I believe,” she ended, “as in Derbyshire, where the Babingtons, my distant relatives, who are settled at Dethick, still hold to the old Faith. Most living hereabouts, though, are Protestant.”

“And are those around Atherington mainly Protestant, and therefore loyal, madam?” asked Drew, apparently idly.

“Assuredly.” Bess answered him eagerly; she wanted him to know that there were no traitors in Leicestershire. “We are all, Catholic and Protestant alike, loyal subjects of our Queen.”

Drew knew this to be true in the main. There had been many plots against the Queen designed to assassinate her, and replace her by her imprisoned cousin, Mary, the Catholic Queen of Scots, but few English Catholics had been involved in them. They had mostly been hatched abroad. This lay behind Walsingham’s uneasiness over the reports he had received, for they seemed to hint at a purely English conspiracy—a most disturbing development.

Bess had, quite deliberately, spoken to be heard by all, not simply her husband, and as a result all heads had nodded in agreement when she had finished speaking. Her Comptroller, Walter Hampden, sitting not far from them, raised his goblet of wine and said, “With your permission, my Lord of Exford, I beg that on this auspicious day of your arrival we may all rise to toast, not only our good Queen Elizabeth, but the Protestant Faith.”

Drew rose and held his goblet high. “With all my heart, my good sir. I give you Good Queen Bess and the Protestant Faith. Drink up, I beg you.” He threw his handsome head back and drained his goblet to the lees.

The whole room echoed him, but Walter had not finished. He called on the servitor to refill his goblet, saying, “Again with your permission, my lord, I ask that the company may now be allowed to toast both you and your good lady, who has guarded Atherington’s interests so bravely on your behalf.”

Now, what could he say to that, but, “Most excellent and all good cheer to you, sir. I will allow your toast—but only if you will omit any salutation to me so that I may be allowed to drink to my lady wife also.”

A hum of delight ran round the table. Some of Atherington’s people, watching their new lord, had feared that he and his lady might be at odds, but such a statement cleared their minds of worry. As for Drew’s followers, including Charles, they were noting with some amusement that their master was using his notorious charm to win over his new subjects.

Bess, somewhat nonplussed by Drew’s apparent change of heart, smiled up at him as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek before he led the company in the toast to her. “Is this reconciliation, my lord? Or have you some other aim in mind?”

Oh, she was a clever minx, his wife! She did not trust him in the least—as he did not trust her. He whispered in her ear as he sat down again, “It is not to Atherington’s benefit for your people to think that we are out of humour with one another—even if we are. Smile, my lady wife, as I do—and thus we make our world happy. We may pursue our real ends when we are alone together.”

Alone together! The mere thought of it had Bess quailing inwardly. No doubt about it, he would be the terrier and she would be the rat. But if so, why, as well as fear, did she feel a strange exhilaration? It was as though she had never lived until she had met him. She was on fire—and knew not why. She only knew that her husband was looking at her strangely, his blue eyes growing larger and larger as they drew nearer and nearer to her.