The Accidental Bride

Chapter 6

Phoebe gritted her teeth as a groom helped her onto the pillion pad behind Portia. It was all in a good cause, she told herself. And kept telling herself throughout the ride into Witney, some five miles’ distance. Portia made no concessions to her passenger’s fears and gave the mare her head across the flat fields.

They rode into the small market town just after noon and left the horses and their Decatur escort in the stable yard of the Hand and Shears. Portia for once was wearing a riding skirt over her britches, but it did nothing to constrain her long, rangy stride as they set off in search of the golden balls that would denote a pawnbroker.

Phoebe was astonished to find herself behaving as if she did this kind of thing all the time. She seemed to be driven by a compulsion that had come from nowhere and was as exciting as it was irresistible. She marched into the gloom of the pawnbroker’s, unwrapped the silk scarf that contained the rings, and laid the small hoard on the cracked pine counter. “I want twenty guineas for them,” she heard herself say, bold as brass.

“Oh, do you now?” The pawnbroker peered at her through a monocle. He was wondering what straits could have brought three such young women of obvious breeding to his door. Most unlike his usual customers. They seemed very self-possessed, and not in the least supplicant. The dark girl was strolling around his shop examining his wares with an air of purposeful curiosity. The tall redhead merely stood against the door, arms folded, as coolly as if she owned the place.

He turned his attention to the rings. The settings were old-fashioned, but the rings were worth a deal more than twenty guineas. He wondered why the young woman hadn’t asked for more. She was tapping her fingers on the counter in obvious impatience as he made his examination, and he came to the odd conclusion that she’d fixed on the sum she wanted and wasn’t in the least interested in anything more. She couldn’t be in some kind of trouble, he thought. People in trouble behaved very differently. It was most intriguing.

However, after his inspection he merely nodded and unlocked a silver-bound chest. He extracted twenty guineas and gave them to her without a further word.

“My thanks.” Phoebe scooped the coins into her pocket. She turned to the door. “Come on, Olivia. We don’t have much time.”

“I was looking for a pair of c-compasses,” Olivia said. But she abandoned her search and followed Phoebe and Portia out of the shop.

They found a dressmaker’s shop halfway down the High Street. Phoebe peered in the window. “I’ve never bought a gown ready-made before,” she said, assailed by her first moment of doubt since the expedition had started, but Portia was already striding into the shop.

The dressmaker looked as if she’d found a treasure trove as she hurried out of a back room at the tinkle of the bell. “What can I do for you, my ladies?” It was very clear from dress and posture that they were ladies. Although it was strange that they should be unaccompanied.

“Lady Granville wishes to buy a gown,” Portia announced, indicating Phoebe with a wave of her hand. “She wishes to be able to take it home this afternoon, so perhaps you could show us what you have.”

The dressmaker looked closely at Phoebe. She saw a voluptuous young woman in a shabby, ill-fitting gown and unhappily revised her expectations. Expensive high fashion didn’t seem to be in order here. She disappeared into the sewing room, reappearing in a very few minutes with several pallid gowns, all with delicate lacy shawl collars that covered the bosom almost to the throat. She laid them on a chair.

Phoebe felt a surge of disappointment. Portia said, “No, they won’t do at all. We want a gown that will make the most of her advantages.”

Phoebe was so unaccustomed to thinking of herself as having advantages that she felt embarrassed, imagining that the woman would be wondering what on earth Portia was talking about. Once again this didn’t seem like such a good idea.

But the woman, looking immediately more cheerful, was now nodding as she walked all around Phoebe. “Yes, a lovely little figure, if I may say so, my lady. A touch of Rubens about you. It will be a pleasure to dress you.”

“Oh, I like this one.” Olivia had wandered off with her usual blithe curiosity into the back room and now came out with a gown of orange silk edged in black. “Isn’t this lovely?” She held it up.

“The color would suit you, m’lady, with your black hair,” the dressmaker said, “but it’s too harsh for Lady Granville.”

“Is it?” Phoebe asked with disappointment. “It’s very… very bold. I wish the gown to be bold,” she asserted as her ideas crystallized.

“Bravo.” Portia applauded softly.

The dressmaker stroked her chin where a little cluster of whiskers sprouted, much to Olivia’s fascination. “Blue,” she pronounced. “Dark blue for the eyes. I have just the gown. It was made for a customer’s trousseau, but alas, poor lady, her betrothed was killed at Naseby and she hadn’t the heart to take any of the trousseau.” She turned and dived into the back regions again.

“I wish I c-could buy this.” Olivia held the orange gown against her and examined her reflection in the mirror.

“It certainly suits you, but I don’t think we want to give Cato too many surprises all at once,” Portia said.

“Is that what you’re doing? Trying to surprise my father?” Olivia turned slowly from the mirror. “Is that why Phoebe won’t have a g-gown made up at home?”

“Exactly,” Portia said. “Men need to be surprised now and again. It’s good for ‘em.”

Olivia couldn’t imagine her father surprised. He was always so much in control of things. If any surprises were to be dished out, he’d be doing the dishing. Or so she had always thought.

“Now, try this, Lady Granville.” The dressmaker bustled back. She held a gown of midnight blue velvet. The color was so dark, the material so rich, it shimmered in the light of the oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling.

“Oh!” Phoebe said with a tiny gasp. She touched the gown, brushing the velvet with her fingers. “It’s like a river.”

Portia was already unhooking Phoebe’s dimity print. It fell to her feet and she stepped out of it, kicking it away impatiently.

The dressmaker dropped the velvet over her head and expertly hooked it at the back. She adjusted the skirts that looped over an underdress of figured blue silk.

“Now, that,” Portia declared, “is what I call dramatic.”

“I knew I was right,” said Olivia with satisfaction.

Phoebe stepped to the mirror and gasped. Her bosom rose creamy white from a decolletage so low her nipples were almost visible. A stiff embroidered collar rose at the back of the gown, framing her head and somehow accentuating the plunging decolletage. The gown was bound beneath the bosom with a girdle of braided silk and fell in luxuriant folds to caress the swell of her hips.

“I don’t look like me,” she said. “But it’s shocking. My breasts are going to tumble out.”

“No, they won’t, m’lady,” the dressmaker assured her. “But it does need a few minor adjustments. The sleeves are a little long, and the skirts. If you’ll leave it with me for an hour, I’ll have it ready for you.” She had a pincushion fastened to her wrist and was pinning and tucking as she spoke.

“How much is it?” Phoebe asked. Uncertainty mingled with exhilaration. She looked like a wanton. Cato would be horrified. And yet she was fascinated by this new image of herself. Wanton perhaps, but also undeniably fashionable. And she’d never noticed how white her bosom was, or how truly deep the cleft between her breasts. Her waist was not defined by the gown, and somehow that made it seem smaller than she knew it was. But that was the contrast surely between the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips.

“Ten guineas, m’lady.” The dressmaker was on her knees pinning up the hem of the underskirt.

“That means you can have two,” Portia said practically.

“No!” Phoebe exclaimed, then said almost without volition, “Unless… well, unless the poor lady…”

“I have just the very gown, m’lady.” The dressmaker disappeared into the back room again, reappearing with a dress of dark red silk. “The very thing,” she repeated, holding the garment up for inspection. “And I can let you have it for ten guineas.”

“Oh, yes,” Phoebe murmured. “What a wonderful color.”

“It’ll certainly look well on you,” Portia stated.

Phoebe glanced at Olivia, who was examining her with wide eyes.

“What do you think of this one, Olivia?”

“I think if you mean to surprise my father, you’ll certainly succeed,” Olivia replied. “In b-both gowns.” She hesitated, then asked somewhat tentatively, “But why do you wish to?” She had the feeling there were mysteries here to which she was not party.

Portia and Phoebe exchanged a glance, then Portia said, “Wait until you’re married, duckie. Then you’ll understand.”

“But I’m never getting married,” Olivia pointed out.

“What d’you think are the chances of that, Phoebe?” Portia said with a grin.

“Minimal,” Phoebe replied promptly. “Look what happened to us.”

“It doesn’t have to happen to me,” Olivia declared. “My father won’t compel me, not like yours, Phoebe. And I’m never going to fall in love like Portia, so of course I’m not going to get married.” She gave them a look as if defying them to disagree with her.

Portia chuckled. “No, of course you’re not.”

Phoebe turned back to the looking glass. She surveyed her image in the blue velvet gown with an almost fearful awe. “Do I dare?” she breathed.

“Dare all to win all,” Portia responded. “It really does look lovely… but…” She grinned. “It’s a very different you. Now you have to think of the games to follow.”

“Games… what games?” Olivia asked.

“If you’re never going to get married, you’ll never need to know,” Portia said with another grin.

Phoebe turned so the dressmaker could unhook the gown at the back. “I don’t really know what you mean, either.” Her voice was muffled in velvet as the gown came over her head. She stood still for the red silk and then examined herself in the glass with her head on one side. She gave an involuntary gasp of delight, forgetting all about games for the moment.

“Oh, it is gorgeous. I don’t know which one I like best. But are you sure I don’t look like a whore in them?”

“They’re very fashionable,” Portia said definitely and diplomatically. “Let’s go to the inn and find something to eat; I’m ravenous. We’ll come back for the gowns after.”

Phoebe scrambled into her old gown with something like relief at the return to normality. Portia and Olivia linked arms with Phoebe and bore her out into the street again before she could have second thoughts.

Rufus Decatur’s sons careened into Cato as he crossed the hall. “Where’s Portia? Do you know where she went?” they clamored in chorus.

“I have no idea. When did you see her last?” He regarded them with a faint smile, thinking that for all their unruly grubbiness they were a very attractive pair of tykes.

“Oh, ages ago,” Luke informed him. “She went out with Phoebe and Olivia on horses and said she’d be back soon. But she isn’t.”

“Riding? They went riding?” Phoebe voluntarily on horseback? Cato’s eyebrows lifted. “Did they say where they were going?”

Toby shook his head. “An‘ we forgot to ask.”

“Well, they can’t be too long.” Cato glanced out of the window beside the front door. The afternoon was drawing in. “I’ll go to the stables and see if they told anyone where they were going.”

He moved to the door, the two boys trotting at his heels, Juno exuberantly bounding ahead. “We’ll all come too,” Toby informed him unnecessarily.

They reached the stables just as the small cavalcade trotted in. He saw with approval that the three Decatur men accompanying them were well armed, but he wondered why they hadn’t taken an escort of his own men.

“Where have you been? The boys were growing anxious.”

Phoebe was clinging to Portia’s waist, and when Portia dismounted, she gave a little squeal of dismay and grabbed for the pommel. “Don’t leave me up here, Portia! This beast’ll run away with me!”

“Don’t be absurd, Phoebe,” Cato chided, reaching up to loosen her death grip. “Let go now.”

Phoebe did so and instantly tumbled into his arms, so suddenly he staggered back before he regained his balance.

“Oh, thank you for catching me,” she said.

“I didn’t have much choice,” he observed, aware of her rounded arms encircling his neck and her swift breath rustling against his cheek.

He set her on her feet, but kept a hand on her shoulder for a moment. He looked down at her with a quizzical gleam in his eye.

He was close enough for Phoebe to see the little creases around his eyes, white against the weathered tan, and she could smell leather and wood smoke on his skin.

Portia said cheerfully above the excited barks of Juno and the insistent clamor of the boys, “I wanted to see some of the surrounding villages, sir. I don’t know this part of the world and once it stopped raining it seemed a good opportunity.”

The Decatur men were not about to contradict her.

Cato’s hand dropped from Phoebe’s shoulder and he moved away.

“How long will you be staying, my lord?” Phoebe found her voice again.

He paused and glanced back at her. “A while,” he said. “Now that Basing House has yielded, I’ll be working with Cromwell in headquarters for some time. There’ll be no need for me to spend too much time from home in the next weeks.”

Phoebe’s heart leaped. There was nothing stopping her now from implementing Portia’s advice. Her eyes darted to the package still fastened to Portia’s saddle.

Then she caught Portia’s eye. Portia winked as if she could read her thoughts, and Phoebe lifted her chin in answer. Dare all to win all.

“You need to do something with your hair” Portia said later, prowling around Phoebe like a tiger on the scent of prey. “It looks too demure and innocent in that ribbon. It doesn’t go with the gown.”

Phoebe caught the thick mass at the nape of her head and lifted it on top, twisting it into a knot. “Like this?”

“Yes, precisely.” Portia rummaged through the little box on the dresser. “There’s only pins in here. What you really need are some combs to hold it in place. Silver ones, if you’ve got them.”

“Oh, I have some,” Olivia said. “They were my mother’s. I’ve never worn them. I wonder if I can find them.”

“Well, go and look, duckie.”

Olivia hurried off and when the door shut behind her, Phoebe said, “Portia, I’m scared. Diana never wore a dress like this. She was always so elegant. This isn’t very elegant, is it?”

Portia considered this, her head on one side. “Diana couldn’t have worn it,” she pronounced finally. “It’s a different kind of elegance, and only someone with your shape could wear it.”

Phoebe wasn’t sure that this did much for her confidence, but Olivia’s return with two silver combs studded with tiny sapphires distracted her.

“I forgot they had sapphires,” Olivia said. “They’ll pick up the c-color of the gown. Isn’t that good?”

“Perfect,” Portia agreed, taking them from her. “D’you want me to do it, Phoebe?”

“Oh, yes, if you would. I’m no good with my hair. I can never get it to stay in place whatever I do with it.”

“I’m not exactly expert myself. But I’ll try.” Frowning in concentration, Portia positioned the combs in the thick knot, then she stood back. “That should do. How does it feel?”

Phoebe moved her head gingerly. “As if it’s going to come tumbling down at any minute.”

“Well, don’t move your head too much,” Olivia suggested.

“I can’t sit like a stuffed dummy all through supper. I have to move my head to eat… not that I think I’m going to be able to eat a thing,” she added. Her stomach felt as if a field of butterflies had taken up residence there.

Portia added a few pins to her handiwork, then said, “That’ll have to do. I’m sure it’ll hold.”

“We’d b-better go down.” Olivia went to the door. “It’s close to six o’clock.”

The clock was striking six when Cato emerged from his study. As he crossed the great hall he glanced up at the stairs and stopped dead. Portia, for once in female attire, his daughter, and someone else were descending the stairs. His first thought was that this was some unknown guest about to be sprung upon him, and then he stared.

“Phoebe?” He stepped to the foot of the stairs.

Phoebe’s heart pattered, her knees trembled, but she kept on down the stairs. “We haven’t kept you waiting for supper, I trust, my lord.”

“Phoebe?” repeated Cato, stunned.

His wife was wearing the most unsuitable gown. He had never seen one like it… no, that was not true. He had seen women of the court dressed with such blatant sensuality. But never a wife of his.

He shot an outraged look at his niece. It had to be Portia’s fault. Phoebe could never have chosen such a gown for herself.

Before he could gather his thoughts, even begin to express himself, a servant crossed the hall to the dining parlor with a laden tray and the butler, husband to the formidable Mistress Bisset, emerged from the kitchen regions.

“My lord, supper is served.”

Cato could say nothing in front of the servants. “Thank you, Bisset.” He strode toward the dining parlor and opened the door, holding it for Phoebe, Portia, and Olivia to pass through.

Phoebe’s midnight blue skirts brushed against him in a fluid ripple of velvet. His eye fell on the deep cleft of her breasts. He could see the faint shadow of her nipples just below the neckline.

Portia took her seat with a demure air so out of character Olivia almost choked into her napkin. She glanced covertly at her father, wondering what he was thinking. It was hard to tell. His features were as well schooled as always, but there was something remarkably like shock in his dark eyes as he pulled out Phoebe’s chair at the foot of the table before taking his own place at the head.

Phoebe’s gown had certainly surprised him, Olivia reckoned. Not that it could have failed to. It was difficult to tell whether he liked it or not. She glanced at Portia, who gave her a lazy wink before solicitously offering Lord Granville the wine decanter. It was obvious to Portia that despite the even facade, the marquis was in sore need of fortification.

It was also obvious that the servants were fascinated by Lady Granville’s new incarnation.

“You may leave us,” Cato said curtly to the butler. “We’ll serve ourselves.”

The butler bowed and hustled his minions from the room. Cato regarded Phoebe over the lip of his goblet. He couldn’t help noticing how the candlelight threw a rosy glow over the creamy white flesh of her bosom. The high collar at the back accentuated the smooth column of her throat. The sleeves of the gown were puffed, and banded in paler blue velvet. They ended just below the elbow in three layers of white ruffles.

He noticed her shoulders in the gown. They were prettily rounded, and her forearms emerging from the ruffles had a very graceful line. She seemed to be holding herself differently. Instead of hunching over as if to shield as much of herself as possible from observation, she sat with her shoulders back, her head up, her back very straight.

Phoebe was aware of Cato’s eyes on her throughout the meal. Even when he was addressing some innocuous remark to Portia or to Olivia, his gaze would dart to Phoebe, a speculative gleam in the dark depths. She’d wanted his attention, and she certainly had it.

Phoebe was concentrating so hard on not spilling anything on her gown that she didn’t notice at first when her hair started to come down. It trickled in little wisps at first, then she felt one of the heavy loops in the knot beginning to slip out of the comb. She put a tentative hand up and tried to push the comb back in, but her hair as always had a springy life and strength of its own. The more she touched it, the looser it became.

She blushed, picked up her goblet, took an overhasty sip of wine and choked. Coughing and spluttering into her napkin, she cursed her clumsiness. It always let her down in the end.

Cato threw down his napkin, pushed back his chair, and came around the table. He patted her back until the coughing fit subsided and then held her goblet to her lips.

“Take a slow sip this time.”

Phoebe was so furious with herself she almost snatched the goblet from him. Her hair under the violence of her coughing was now tumbling unrestrained down the back of her neck, and she felt like screaming with annoyance.

“Keep still a minute,” Cato instructed softly, and with swift and deft fingers he twisted the knot securely again and inserted the silver, sapphire-studded combs. They seemed familiar and he paused in his work with a slight frown. Then he remembered. They were Nan’s. Olivia must have lent them to Phoebe. Nan, of course, had always been neat as a new pin, never a hair out of place.

As his hands moved intimately through her hair, Phoebe seemed to catch fire and her breath stopped in her lungs. Only when he took his hands away and returned to his seat could she breathe again.

Never had he touched her with such intimacy before. One could not call the swift and distant act of their marriage bed intimate. She glanced at Portia, who raised an eyebrow even as she blithely continued deboning a river trout.

Cato rang the bell for the second course. He was impatient to have Phoebe to himself. Before he told her exactly what he thought about the unsuitability of her attire, he wanted a few explanations. Not least how she’d paid for the gown. He’d assessed the quality of the velvet and the lace and could make a fair guess at what it had cost her. It was also, for all its daring cut, a very fashionable garment, and fashion did not come cheap.

He sat back in his carved chair, tapping his fingernails on the glowing cherrywood of the table while the servants cleared platters and placed a raised venison pie, an apple tart, a compote of plums, and a basket of mushroom tarts on the table.

His impatience throughout the second course grew more obvious, and it was a relief to all when he decided it was time to bring this interminable meal to a close. He pushed back his chair with a scrape on the parquet and stood up. It was the signal for the rest to lay down their spoons and forks, whether they’d finished or no.

“Forgive me, but I have work to do,” he said. “If you wish to continue with supper, please do so.”

He turned to his wife. “A word with you, Phoebe, if you please.”

“Yes… yes, of course, my lord.” Phoebe stood up in a rush.

Cato bowed in acknowledgment and moved to the door. He held it for her, saying quietly as she passed through, “Let us go abovestairs for this.”

Phoebe felt a little tremor of alarm. He looked remarkably like a judge about to don the black cap.