The girl didn’t so much as blink. “For my dowry. It’s very large, and if I take it out of the family, the viscountcy’s fortunes will be sadly depleted.”
Kitty had to consider that. If the girl spoke the truth, Dauntry might be sensible to marry her. They weren’t closely connected by blood. After the disastrous meeting in the lane, she’d been sure Dauntry would back out of the arrangement. Had he committed himself to her and then come to his senses? Then fled? That would be unbalanced, at the least, but then he was an ex-soldier. Who knew what chaos lay beneath?
“I fear,” the chit said, a glint of triumph in her eyes, “he may have played a game on you.”
Sillikin growled. It was so unusual, it snapped Kitty out of her paralysis. She quickly picked up her dog. “You speak nonsense.”
“Do I? Ask instead why he would marryyou, ma’am. You have no beauty or style, nor any fortune. I also gather that you are barren.”
Kitty wished they were close enough for Sillikin to bite, because every word was horribly true. There was no reason for this marriage beyond some chilly convenience, and she’d been probing the puzzle for a week. The encounter in the lane had shown her to be not at all the bride he’d been promised. So he’d... what? Devised a cruel punishment? To build her hopes and then leave her at the altar, exposed to the sniggers of people surprised she’d ever thought to marry so unbelievably high? Had he assumed that she’d go around the village, boasting about it? Had he then returned to the Abbey and proposed marriage to Isabella?
She’s his ward.
Is that even legal?
Her churning mind couldn’t make sense of anything,but her finger was bare, and that sapphire ring glinted as brightly as the girl’s sharp blue eyes.
“I came to warn you,” Isabella said. “If you go to the church on Wednesday, you’ll be left standing at the altar.”
Ah! So that is the plan. They think they can make me flee?Kitty almost smiled at the thought, but kept a sober face. “You have given me much to think about, Miss Godyson-Braydon. I bid you good day.”
She turned and walked into the house, feeling the glare directed at her back. She walked faster, hoping it looked like panicked flight, then watched from the parlor window as the girl was helped by the groom to remount and rode away.
“What a paltry creature they must think me,” she said to Sillikin. “They have much to learn.” Brave words, but would anyone, even a sixteen-year-old girl, flaunt a false engagement ring? Logic was on Isabella’s side, especially if she’d told the truth about having inherited most of the viscountcy’s wealth.
What did Kitty have to offer? Nothing but convenience.
Dauntry had offered marriage, but then he’d run away.
With dismay, Kitty remembered Captain Jameston. He’d come home on furlough, visited a fellow officer’s home in Kent, and met the man’s sister. He’d made her promises but then hurriedly departed for the north. Later they’d heard he’d married a childhood friend there. It had almost led to a duel, but when the furor had been discussed in Moor Street, the other officers had seemed to understand. Plunged from battles and hardship into the sweet bosom of home, men’s emotions weren’t always stable or reliable. Men brave in war could be cowards in domestic complexities.
Kitty found it hard to see Dauntry as unstable or ina cowardly panic, but she didn’t know him at all. Even Ruth and Andrew didn’t know him intimately, and Captain Jameston had seemed a rational man. She remembered Lord Cateril’s implied warning. Did he know something about Dauntry that gave him doubts?
What on earth was she to do on Wednesday?
Chapter 11
Kitty went through Tuesday like a sleepwalker, which could be because she’d had little sleep. Ruth put it down to bridal nerves and left her alone. Kitty longed for Dauntry to turn up and make all clear, one way or another.
Would he make no contact until the wedding? They hadn’t even set a time for it. Was she just to go to church and hope he’d be there?
Definitely not. She wouldn’t even put on her wedding bonnet until she was sure.
But even if he was ready to marry her, should she go through with it?
She’d once brushed aside the idea of marrying a madman as a minor thing, but on the eve of her wedding, it wasn’t minor at all. She prayed he’d visit her before the wedding so she’d have another opportunity to assess him. After so many days, she distrusted what flimsy impressions she remembered.
Cold, distant, calculating...
The arrival of her possessions from Cateril Manor provided distraction. It might turn out to be pointless to have them, but unpacking and hanging out clothing to air gave her something to do. She had her books as well, and the various ornaments and mementoes of her life.
She sat to reread Marcus’s letters from when he’d courted her. They were faded now, but his vitality andadoration shone from the pages. They’d been different people then, still with hope. Then there were the gifts he’d given her over the years. He’d mostly given her small pieces of jewelry for her birthdays, but here was the china vase with a puppy on it that was very like Sillikin. Captain Edison had given her the puppy, and Marcus had been put out, but mostly because he hadn’t thought of it. He must have asked a friend to seek out such a vase.
She smiled at the small model of the Parthenon made out of cork. There’d been a popular exhibition of much larger models of that sort, and Marcus had taken her to that. The promise of a working replica of a volcano had inspired him to a special effort. He’d hired a sedan chair for the journey, because it was a smoother ride than a coach over cobbles, and then a bath chair to go around the room. He’d claimed he was no more uncomfortable than sitting around at home, but even though the volcano had lived up to expectations, they’d rarely repeated the experiment. London was a treasure box of curiosities and amusements, but she’d experienced so very few of them.
She rewrapped the model and all the other bits and pieces. Whatever happened tomorrow, there was no point in putting them on display here.
She brought in the first load of freshened clothing and hung out some more. She had bright and becoming clothing again. None were up to the mark, but they raised her spirits, until she remembered that she’d not get to wear them as a governess or companion.
