Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“Iam so glad you are getting married, Frances,” enthused her seventeen-year-old sister, Lady Beatrice Harcourt, almost dancing around the reception room at the back of Mrs. Merton’s dressmakers.
“I’ve wanted to be a bridesmaid since you first came out and was beginning to think that I should never have the chance. ”
Frances smiled noncommittally at the good-natured and slightly freckled face of her sister, glad that others were enjoying themselves on an outing that was only an obligation to her. Lady Scovell herself was in seventh heaven, and Beatrice not far behind her.
Lydia Carrington, Frances’ best friend, had also joined them at the dressmaker’s shop. While normally hard to drag away from the stables of her father, the Viscount of Trembath, Lydia was keen not to miss out on any of the fun of finally outfitting her friend for a wedding.
Even Lord Scovell was here with them today, rather incongruously browsing ribbons through the door of a small anteroom.
“I am glad that you are getting married quickly,” added black-haired Lydia, her almost black eyes shining. “A summer wedding is so much nicer than a Winter wedding when everyone must be wrapped up in woolens just to endure the church service.”
“Well, I am so glad you each feel that way,” returned Frances drily, pushing yet another set of silken swatches in her sister’s direction after receiving them from the hands of an assistant.
“There is much to do and you two must pick the fabric for your dresses. My mind is too busy with all that must be decided for my own dress and the trousseau too.”
Matters were proceeding very quickly since Frances gave her assent to the Duke of Westall’s marriage proposal.
Neither of them saw reason to wait and the marriage contract had been fixed within a week, the duke apparently agreeing to every stipulation from Lord Scovell and making generous provision for his wife’s future without any prompting.
Ambrose Clarke did seem to be a good man, Frances conceded, from what she had seen in recent weeks.
Still, it likely also helped that he did not care enough about either his bride or the wedding itself to quibble over details.
He was gaining a stepmother for his child and Frances was gaining independence.
Both of them were also hopefully gaining peace from family pressures to marry.
“Cream silk is so becoming to you, Frances,” murmured Lady Scovell, holding up a swatch against her older daughter’s face. “Yet you wear it so often. For your wedding, should we not choose something special?”
“Gold and silver,” suggested Lydia, not entirely seriously, “hung with diamonds and pearls. Like a princess getting married in a fairy tale.”
Frances pulled a face and shook her head at this incongruous suggestion. Lydia herself was rarely out of a riding habit and barely more interested than Frances in finding a match, unless of the equine variety for one of the many horses her family already owned.
“I do not wish to be in a fairy tale,” Frances said, laughing but thinking with distaste of handsome princes who kissed sleeping princesses unawares, or stole away young maidens they had rescued from dragons when the poor girl probably only wished to go home again.
“The men in fairy tales are not gentlemen.”
“I agree,” remarked her mother. “Men in real life are far more gentlemen than the rogues in fairy stories. Your duke, for instance, Frances, has a very good reputation in society. Your father too…”
“What about your dress, Mother?” Frances interrupted swiftly, never able to stomach hearing Lady Scovell innocently trumpeting Lord Scovell’s virtues. “Why don’t you wear cream silk this time and I shall choose something else? Our coloring is very alike, although our build is different.”
“Yes, that is a good idea,” her mother agreed but then called out to Lord Scovell across the room. “Edmund, shall I wear cream silk for Frances’ wedding? What do you think?”
“You always look beautiful to me, dear,” replied the earl, popping his head around the doorway and meeting his wife’s eyes with an affectionate look that almost made Frances roll her eyes. “You can wear anything and still be the only woman in the room I see.”
“Oh, Edmund!” sighed Lady Scovell affectionally. “You do say the nicest things. I only hope that Frances will be half as happy in her marriage as we have been.”
Happy?! Edmund Harcourt, Lord Scovell, Frances’ once beloved father was nothing but a liar, a hypocrite and a deceiver. Meanwhile, her sweet, innocent mother believed him the perfect gentleman and best of husbands. It made Frances quite ill to hear them talking like this.
“Have you decided on your dress, Frances?” Lord Scovell asked. “That is the big question after all, I believe.”
“Not yet,” she returned shortly. “I’d like to discuss it with Mrs. Merton and see what she thinks will suit.
“Oh, I have many ideas for a duchess-to-be with such a perfect figure as yours, Lady Frances,” exclaimed Mrs. Merton delightedly, bustling back into the room with several more bolts and samples in her arms. “Why don’t we go into my parlor and talk there while your family are choosing their own dresses?
We shall find something that takes the Duke of Westall’s breath away at the altar. ”
“I think the duke is already quite smitten,” remarked Frances’ father but was ignored, his daughter walking quickly away after the dressmaker.
“I shall come too,” Lydia declared. “I am quite happy for Beatrice to choose the bridesmaid dresses since she has been waiting for so long."
“The pale blue overlaid with silver is very becoming,” observed Lydia, holding up these two samples again at Frances’ shoulder. “The white and gold was…”
“Too much,” suggested Mrs. Merton. “Yes, I thought so when I saw them laid against Lady Frances’ complexion. We need something both rich and subtle.”
“What do you think, Frances?” Lydia prodded her friend, seeming to finally realize that the bride-to-be herself had not spoken in some time.
“What? Oh, yes, I like these ones too,” Frances said, blindly indicating the blue and silver samples.
In fact, Frances’ mind had been elsewhere for some time. It had been on Ambrose Clarke, Duke of Westall. More specifically it had been on the strange effect his proximity had produced in her blood on both occasions that they met.
How was it possible for someone to both stir your senses and make you feel safe?
The two were surely opposites. Yet it was possible, because that was what Frances felt when she stood close to the Duke of Westall.
It occurred to her that the most dangerous kind of security could be one that made you long for your senses to be so stirred.
“Yes, they set off your eyes beautifully, Lady Frances,” Mrs. Merton gushed in approval. “I can imagine a dress in these colors with a bouquet of white roses, forget-me-nots and orange blossom, although there may be other considerations for floristry.”
“I like the sound of that too, Frances,” chimed in Lydia, folding a scrap of white silk into a flower shape and holding it beside the samples. “We could carry the same color bouquets but smaller and with carnations instead of roses.”
Frances only nodded and smiled agreeably. She was happy to indulge her mother, sister and friend in outfitting this wedding but it did not touch her heart and she could not feel strongly.
“Beatrice and your mother want to know if you’ve chosen a color yet,” broke in Lord Scovell’s voice from the doorway. “Your sister says that she cannot think more about the bridesmaid dresses until the bridal gown shade is set.”
Her smile fading, Frances held up the blue and silver fabrics for her father rather than answering him.
“That will look very well indeed, if you want my opinion,” he offered, venturing a smile.
“I do not want your opinion,” Frances said quietly, this softly spoken but unmistakeable rebuff startling both Lydia and Mrs. Merton.
Her father himself did not look surprised, although he winced as he always did under the assault of her small barbs. Frances believed that he feigned his hurt as he presumably feigned everything else.
“Gentleman are always somewhat superfluous to requirements at a bridal consultation,” said Mrs. Merton quickly, her tone professionally cheerful and soothing as she went to Lord Scovell’s side and escorted him from the room.
“Perhaps you might better look at some of the handkerchief silks for your suit pocket, something to complement your daughter’s dress, I think. ”
“Why do you hate your father so much?” Lydia whispered once they were alone, her voice rather shocked. “I know there has been some falling out between you but he only commented on the color of your dress. Could you not have answered nicely?”
“You do not know my father,” Frances returned. “He is not as nice as he seems, but I do not wish to talk of him.”
Lydia shook her head in confusion and Frances sighed to herself, knowing that her reactions must seem irrational to her friend, especially when Frances was normally so sensible and good-tempered with the rest of her family, friends and acquaintance.
Well, at least after she became Duchess of Westall, she need rarely see her father again, Frances supposed. While Scovell Hall and Westall Park were each less than two hours from London, they were in opposite directions from one another. That was definitely one advantage of this marriage.
“Then, let us talk of the wedding night instead,” suggested Lydia conspiratorially. “Are you looking forward to it or not? From what I have seen and heard of the Duke of Westall, he is both handsome and kind. While I prefer horses to husbands for myself, yours seems like an excellent choice.”
The subject of the wedding night was only marginally more palatable to Frances than the subject of her father. Yet Lydia spoke with such unthinking friendliness and interest that she did not want to scotch her friend’s conversation unkindly.
“I am barely thinking of it at all,” Frances told Lydia, to the latter’s puzzlement.
“This is very much an arranged marriage rather than a love match, you know. You are right that the duke is a kind man, or I would not have agreed to the match. Still, it may be that we see very little of one another at Westall Park.”
“But surely you will spend the wedding night together?” Lydia pressed in disbelief. “Even in arranged marriages, I would have thought both husbands and wives would expect that, wouldn’t they? Have you really not thought about married life at all?”
“I am looking forward to being independent and to running my own home,” Frances replied. “I believe I shall have more peace and freedom as a married woman at Westall Park than an unmarried woman at Scovell Hall. Nor shall I ever be required to dance again with another unwanted suitor.”
“You have no curiosity about your husband at all?”
Curiosity? Was that the word for the frisson that was always there in a room where Ambrose Clark was present? Frances shrugged and looked away. Lydia’s interest was only natural and she would likely have to tell her friend something more if she wished to end the uncomfortable questioning.
“I told the duke that I never wished to share a bed and he promised to respect my wishes,” Frances confessed.
How prim her voice sounded! Lydia gave a little gurgle of both laughter and surprise.
“You are joking,” she said, her black eyes dancing. “Aren’t you?”
Frances shook her head.
“But don’t you want a child?” Lydia asked in consternation. “Doesn’t the Duke of Westall want an heir? It will not be possible if you do not, well, you know…”
“I will have a child,” said Frances firmly. “The duke already has a daughter – Winifred. He does not seem to be pining for more children. We have been quite honest with one another, I believe.”
“Oh, Frances!” sighed Lydia. “I cannot help thinking that marriage might be more complicated than you think.”
At this point, Lady Scovell appeared in the doorway, having received no answer to her earlier question and holding several swatches of cloth in her hands.
“Marriage is complicated,” Frances’ mother commented, beaming, having heard only this last statement without any idea of its context, and eager to contribute her matronly wisdom, “but it is worth every complication. Overcoming hardships together only adds to the shared joy and contentment of a good marriage.”
“Let us hope so,” Frances murmured, sharing a rueful glance with Lydia. “Now, Mother, you may take these swatches I have chosen for my dress back to Beatrice and see what matches best.”
When they came to leave the dressmaker, Frances found that her father had already departed for his club and would not be joining them in the carriage back to Scovell Hall.
“He said he would like to eat dinner with his old friend Roland, who is up from the country this week,” explained Lady Scovell as she and her daughters got into their carriage and waved goodbye to Lydia, pulling away on the other side of the road in Lord Trembath’s coach.
“I’m sure he would,” replied Frances, unable to keep the automatic notes of sarcasm and scorn from her voice.
She had not believed anything her father said about his whereabouts for a very long time. It made matters worse that her mother seemed to trust in him so absolutely and without question.
“He was very upset, Frances,” added Helen Harcourt, her tone as close to reproof as her kind nature ever came. “Your father loves you very much and wants to be part of your wedding. Is that really such a very bad thing?”
“I doubt Father was really that upset,” Frances returned, looking out of the window. “He is a very good actor.”
“Frances!” her mother remonstrated, while Beatrice looked on, wide-eyed. “That is a very unkind thing to say. I do wish you would try harder with your father. He has done nothing to deserve such wrath and it hurts me too to see him distressed, as he was today.”
Now, Frances turned back to her mother and took her hand.
“I am sorry,” she said with some real contrition, not wanting to add to her mother’s burdens. “I did not mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Well, we all have feelings, Frances, including your father. Can you please try to at least be civil until the wedding? It means so much to him, and to me.”
Reluctantly, Frances nodded her head, feeling that she had little choice.