Storming the Castle

Page 21

Philippa frowned, and her father frowned back. “In the dark,” he clarified. “In a proper bed, within the sanctity of matrimony, and with the knowledge that your husband respects and admires you, even though the act itself—to wit, consummation of the marriage—is necessarily distasteful to you, if not painful.”
“Oh,” Philippa said. That would have summed up her probable marital relations with Rodney. But it had no relevance for intimacies with Wick.
“As I said, neither of us blames you,” her father repeated.
“Thank you,” Philippa said.
“Your mother would have fled as well.” Her father pulled off his neckcloth and mopped his face with it. “I simply cannot countenance the idiocy of that young man. Idiocy!”
Philippa waited, a sick feeling in her stomach.
“But be that as it may,” her father said, “you have made your bed, albeit in the stables. Did you confide to this Candlewick what happened to you?”
“His name is Berwick, not Candlewick.” But she nodded.
Her father wiped his face again and threw the neckcloth to the floor. “I shall send the man a gratuity. One hundred pounds. In refusing you, he showed the breeding of his paternal lineage. Obviously, he realized that you were slightly cracked because of the horrendous experience you endured. And he responded as a gentleman must. Two hundred pounds,” he added.
“Be that as it may, you’re to marry Rodney immediately,” he continued. “We’ll forget that episode with the castle and the butler ever happened. Rodney is not the man I should have chosen for you; I see that now. And I am sorry. But you know as well as I do, my dear, that all other doors are closed to you at this point.”
To Philippa, his voice seemed to take on a brassy sound, like someone speaking a foreign language. “Papa,” she pleaded. “I cannot marry him. Please.”
“Do you think that your mother wished to remain married to me after our wedding night?”
There was no possible answer to that.
“She did not,” her father said heavily. “The act is horrifying to a delicately bred creature. But we managed, and we loved each other, and there’s no one else in the world I would rather have married.”
“She didn’t have to marry Rodney!” Philippa cried.
“I want your word of honor that you will not run away again, Philippa.”
“Wick might come for me,” she blurted out.
Her father’s eyes softened. “Oh, sweetheart. Didn’t you just say that he refused to marry you?”
She nodded miserably.
“He truly is a gentleman,” he said gently.
“But he might come for me,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “He—He knows how much I detest Rodney, and he loves me.”
“He can’t support you,” her father said, standing up and pulling her into his arms. “Were I he, I would loathe the idea of lowering the woman I loved, a lady, to the level of a servant. Did he say anything of that sort?”
A sob rose in Philippa’s breast.
Her father held her even closer. “I see he did. Well, my dear, the truth of it is that you have met two young men. One of them is a true gentleman, though perhaps his birth is not the best. And the other is no gentleman, though he’s a baronet’s son.”
“P-Please don’t make me marry him,” Philippa managed.
“There’s no choice,” he said, rocking her a little. “You know that, Philippa. There’s no choice. You’ll forget your noble butler in time. Rodney genuinely loves you, for all the boy’s a fool. You could do much worse.”
“I can’t bear it,” Philippa said, sobbing.
“You mustn’t run away,” her father said. “It broke my heart. I aged ten years, sweetpea. I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t know where you were. Please.”
Silent tears seeped into his coat.
“And you’re a lady,” her father said, pressing forward where he obviously saw an advantage. “You must marry Rodney.” Then he played his strongest card.
“It’s what your mother wanted.”
She knew it was the truth.
“Margaret’s heart would break to think of you, her only child, as a servant, or withering into an old maid,” he said. “I promise you, child, I promise that you will learn to love Rodney. He’s a fool, but he’s not vicious or unkind. He genuinely loves you, in a way that I’ve rarely seen among gentlemen, to tell the truth. He will always care for you, and for the children you will have.”
The weight of his words felt like heavy brambles, rooting her in Little Ha’penny, in Rodney’s arms, in Durfey Manor.
“I—” She swallowed, made herself say it. “I will marry Rodney, but only if you give me a week. If you force me to marry him tomorrow, Papa, I will run away tonight. I will crawl out my window if I have to.”
Her father sighed. “Waiting for the butler?”
“He’s a gentleman,” she said stoutly. “You acknowledged it yourself. He loves me. He told me so. He’ll find a way, some way, to come to me.”
Her father turned away, but not before she saw raw sympathy in his eyes. “As you wish,” he said. “I owe you that at least.”
Chapter Twelve
Hour by agonizing hour, day by day, the week of Philippa’s temporary reprieve crept past. She tried not to look out the window in the direction of the castle. Wick had promised her a week. He would try. He would . . . try. She kept repeating that to herself though she went to sleep sobbing at the possibility that he wouldn’t come.
Or at the possibility he would come to ask for her hand, but a day too late, a week too late, a year too late.
On the fifth day in the early afternoon, her father found her, sitting in a back room without a view of the dusty road leading in the direction of the castle. She was tired of leaping to her feet every time she heard the slightest sound that might be a carriage.
“My dear,” he said, “would you do me a great kindness and take this book to the vicar? I borrowed it sometime ago, and I expect he’d like it back.”
She took the book from his hand. “The Hellenica, by Xenophon,” she read. “What on earth is it?”
“A most interesting account of military prowess,” her father said. “Xenophon was an ancient Greek warrior.”
“Of course, Papa,” she said. “I’m trying to finish hemming before suppertime, but I’ll take it to the vicarage first thing in the morning.”
“No, the vicar is waiting for the book,” her father stated. “Please do so at once.”
Philippa saw that her father’s jaw was set. He seemed to be vibrating with a kind of wordless excitement, one that she instantly interpreted.
“You’re having another argument with the vicar, aren’t you?” she asked, with a sigh. “And I suppose The Hellenica proves your point.”
“Exactly,” her father said with satisfaction. “Riggs will be quite surprised.”
“Must I go this very moment?”
“You could . . . do your hair,” her father said, waving vaguely at her. “After all, no one has seen you since your return.”