The First Snowdrop Read online

  Merrick was intrigued. It was true that he had not seen some of his cousins for quite some time, but he had thought that he would recognize them. It was hard, he supposed, to remember that those girls he had known from infancy had grown into young ladies, and possibly attractive ones at that. This one was very attractive, if one might judge from behind.

  She turned as he stooped to pass through the trellised arch that formed the entryway to the arbor, and he realized that she was not one of his cousins. Grandmamma had said nothing about inviting anyone from outside the family, and he was momentarily annoyed that she had not told him who the girl was. On second thoughts, he blessed his good fortune that he could meet her thus in private. She was an exquisite little beauty-and a shy one too, if one might judge by the color that suffused her cheeks and the urge that caused her to leap to her feet and drop her book.

  He smiled, stepped forward, and retrieved the volume. "Jane Austen," he said, glancing at the title. "Do you enjoy her works?"

  "I have read only Mansfield Park," she said in a tight little voice.

  He tapped the book against his other hand as he examined her. She was a light little creature with a good figure. And she was pretty too, her heart-shaped face made appealing by hollowed cheeks, high cheekbones, and large gray eyes that looked at him now anxiously, almost fearfully. She was not as young as he had at first thought. Her face had character. He was aware finally that the silence was lengthening between them.

  "Alex Stewart," he said, holding out his right hand, "the duke's grandson." He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

  Heaven help her, he had not recognized her. At first she had thought that the duchess had sent him to her and that he had decided to be fair and friendly about the whole business. She had been sitting here for longer than half an hour, reading and rereading the same paragraph without absorbing any of its meaning, wondering when he would come and what would happen when he did. The duchess had sent her after she had taken tea with two batches of newly arrived family members. But he had not been sent. He did not know her. Alexander. So much more powerfully attractive than she remembered.

  "Alexander," she said, not taking the proffered hand, "do you not know me?"

  He frowned and looked at her closely for several seconds. His face noticeably paled as his hand dropped to his side. "My God," he said, "who are you?"

  She grasped the sides of her dress and twisted the fabric in her hands. His eyes followed the gesture.

  "Anne," he said. His eyes lifted to hers, and his own suddenly blazed. "Anne? What is the meaning of this, madam? By what right have you dared present yourself here?"

  "Don't be angry," she said. "Grandpapa insisted that I come. Indeed, I wrote to Grandmamma to explain that you did not wish it, but she wrote back to say that His Grace is head of the family and I must obey him."

  "I am your husband, madam," he said. "It is to me-and to me alone-that you owe obedience. And by what right do you call the Duke and Duchess of Portland by such familiar names?"

  "The duchess has insisted that I do so," Anne said, tears standing in her eyes. "Please, Alexander, do not be angry. I shall try not to bother you in the coming days. You need not know that I am here."

  "Need not know!" he said. "How will I be able to avoid the knowledge, madam? You have the advantage of me. I have been taken quite by surprise. And I have been sent to bring you in for tea. Come. Allow me to escort you. But do not think that you have escaped lightly. I shall consider later how to deal with your disobedience." Unsmilingly, his face pale and set, Merrick transferred the book to his right hand and held out his left arm for her support.

  Anne took his arm, her eyes lowered. She did not want him to see the tears that were about to spill down her cheeks. But she feared that he would feel her trembling. Indeed, she was glad that she was not called upon to speak. Her jaw was tightly clenched to prevent her teeth from chattering. The combination of his anger and his physical nearness and touch was more than her fragile self-confidence could handle at present.

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  There followed a tricky half-hour. Anne seated herself behind the teapot and tried to be unobtrusive, but there were a few newcomers, who had arrived since she had been sent to the rose arbor. One young man closely resembled her husband, except that he was somewhat thinner and had the tendency to view the world with amused eyes from beneath lazy eyelids. He immediately got to his feet when he saw a stranger.

  "Well, well," he said, "it looks as if Grandmamma has arranged for some interesting company, after all. It is just like you, Alex, to be the first to find her. You must not think that gives you undisputed rights to her company for the next two weeks, though. Introduce me, old boy." He strolled across to the table where Anne sat, and leered down at her.

  Merrick had dissociated himself from his wife as soon as they entered the blue salon and had crossed the room to greet his father's nephew, Stanley. He turned back to face the room, his face still pale and grim. "May I present my wife, Anne?" he said, looking around at all the occupants. "Have you met everyone, Anne, and had the relationships explained to you. Aunt Maud Frazer and Aunt Sarah Lynwood are my father's sisters. Jack and Hortense are Aunt Maud's offspring. Uncle Charles and Cousin Freddie belong to Aunt Sarah. Stanley and Celia Stewart are the son and daughter-in-law of Grandpapa's youngest brother. Still upstairs are Grandmamma's sister, Great-aunt Emily, and her family." Merrick had indicated each member of the family as he spoke.

  "Charles and I met Anne earlier," Aunt Sarah said with a smile, "and so did Aunt Emily and her brood. I don't know what keeps them abovestairs so long. Is she holding a family conference up there, Mamma?"

  Jack still stood opposite Anne, regarding her with that strange, amused scrutiny. "Well, well," he said, for her ears only, "the abandoned bride. I had expected to see a veritable antidote. Has Alex been afraid to take you to town for fear that someone else would run off with you?" He grinned as Anne kept her eyes on the table and straightened plates and linen napkins that did not need rearranging. "I shall look forward to making your acquaintance, Anne," he said. "If Alex has no interest in you, perhaps I can deputize for him."

  "Did you want more tea, Jack?" Merrick asked, moving up to stand beside his cousin. "If so, I am sure my wife would be very willing to pour it for you."

  Jack grinned. "You should know, Alex," he said, "that tea is not quite my cup of tea, so to speak. Is one permitted to speak to your wife, old boy, without incurring your wrath?"

  Merrick smiled easily back at him. "Not when he causes her such noticeable embarrassment," he replied.

  Jack sighed. "I perceive that there is to be little fun connected with this celebration," he said.

  The duchess's voice had risen in volume, indicating that she was about to make a general pronouncement. "His Grace has decided," she said, resting a hand lightly on the arm of her husband, who had sat silent and frowning through the whole tea, "that we must have some activity to give focus to these two weeks. We both remember how years ago, when many of you were children, you all used to love the plays we performed for the servants at Christmas. Amateur theatrics, His Grace has decided, is just the thing to keep us all pleasantly occupied until the night of the grand ball. We have exactly two weeks to prepare. We shall perform a play for all the guests who have been invited, between the dinner hour and the start of the dancing." She patted the duke's arm again.

  "Grandmamma!" Hortense shrieked. "How are we to choose a play, allot parts, learn lines, and produce a polished performance all in two weeks?"

  "Impossible!" Stanley agreed.

  The duchess held up a hand for attention. "That is where I have taken the initiative," she said. "I have a play already selected and I have decided who is to play which parts. All you have to do, my dears, is to learn and perform your lines."

  "Mamma!" Sarah said severely. "We came here to be with you and Papa and to relax."

  The duke produced a rumbling sound in his throat, which might have b
een a cough. "Boredom," he said. "Relaxation produces boredom. This'll keep you all busy."

  "Damme if I don't think this a grand idea," Freddie said, smiling eagerly around at the group. "If I just had some brains, I would have a part. No memory, though. Can never remember lines, and when I do, don't know when to say them."

  "You have a part too, Freddie, my boy," the duchess assured him.

  Freddie giggled.

  "What is the play, anyway?" Sarah asked. "Something short, I hope."

  "She Stoops to Conquer," the duchess said, gazing imperiously around her, daring anyone to complain about the choice. "We shall all meet in the morning room after breakfast tomorrow, and I shall allot parts. There will be no arguments, and I expect everyone to learn his lines."

  Jack groaned. "In the absence of any stronger beverage," he said, "I had better fortify myself with more tea. Will you pour, Anne?"

  Chapter 7

  The whole family gathered in the morning room the next morning except the duke, who was reported to be nursing his gout in his private apartments. Those who assembled displayed a variety of moods, from enthusiastic (Freddie) to downright belligerent (Jack), but it was a tribute to the power the duchess exerted over her family that all were there and none was openly arguing against the projected dramatic presentation.

  "Who knows this play, anyway?" the duchess's nephew, Martin Raine, asked of the room at large, while the duchess sat at a desk and perused a sheaf of notes through her lorgnette. "Is it a comedy or a melodrama or a tragedy or what?"

  "We saw it performed last year," Celia offered. "A very comical play. But I fail to see how we are to produce it in just two weeks. We shall doubtless make cakes of ourselves."

  "Balderdash!" said the duchess, not raising her eyes from her task.

  "Oliver Goldsmith wrote it," Stanley said. "I wonder you have not heard of it, Martin."

  "I don't get to town often," Martin replied. "The last thing I saw performed was The Beggar's Opera. And glad I am that Aunt Jemima did not choose that one."

  "Yes, I have it all organized now," the duchess said, raising her head and commanding silence with one glance. "Claude," she looked at her sister's second son, "you always took charge of the Christmas theatrics years ago. I am putting you in charge of directing this play. All the rest of you must accept his authority without question." She stared around the group, daring anyone to contradict.

  Claude clasped his hands across a somewhat rotund middle and blew a mock sigh of relief. "Well, Aunt Jemima," he said, "I cannot pretend to be wholly thrilled, but at least I can now relax and not be afraid that I will be called upon to act."

  The duchess held up her hand for silence. "Let us not waste time," she said. "The sooner you all know the parts you are to play, the sooner you can get busy on learning your lines. And remember that you do not have a great deal of time in which to do so. Now. There are two pairs of lovers in the play, and several character parts, which may not be as large, but which require a deal of good acting. First of all, to set your mind at rest, Freddie, dear boy, I do indeed have a part for you. There are not many lines involved, but you are required to laugh in a few places and to behave in a very confused manner throughout. The character's name is Diggory."

  "Diggory," Freddie said. "I'll do it, Grandmamma. Learn my lines night and day. I can laugh, y' know."

  "Yes, I do know, dear boy," she said. "The main pair of lovers are Kate Hardcastle and Charles Marlow, who falls in love with her thinking she is the maid of the house when she is really the daughter. A highly unlikely plot, of course, but it is meant to be a comedy. I want Anne to be Kate and Alex to be Marlow."

  "No," Merrick said, rising to his feet and then sitting again when he realized that there was nowhere to go. "I know the play, Grandmamma, and Marlow's is a big part. You know I am far too lazy to learn the half of it."

  "Balderdash," she said, raising her lorgnette to her eye and surveying him through it.

  "Grandmamma," Anne said timidly from her place on a sofa between the duchess's two young grand-nieces, Prudence and Constance Raine, "I have never acted in my life or seen a play, in fact. I beg that you will give the part to someone else and let me observe for this occasion. Perhaps some other time."

  "If you are to be a member of this family, my dear," the duchess said kindly but firmly, "you must learn to act. We all do, you know. And there is no time like the present."

  Anne sat very still, completely caught up in her own dismay. She heard none of the other announcements or the comments and protests of the other would-be actors. It was not enough, it seemed, that she had mastered her own terrible shyness and come to this house party, where she would meet all her husband's family. And she had been so proud of herself. She had not cringed from any of the introductions and had made an effort to converse with all of them with whom she had come into close contact. But now she was being called upon to act in a play, and the major role, at that. And they were to perform the play before a crowd of the duke's neighbors and several friends who were coming out from London for the anniversary ball. The very thought made her feel faint.

  The worst of it was, though, that she would have to act with Alexander. Their characters were lovers, the duchess had said. That would mean that they would be together a great deal on stage and be forced to speak words of love. Perhaps they would even have to touch. Perhaps kiss? Anne did not know what was permitted to happen during a play. She had never seen one. The only time a traveling company of actors had come within visiting distance of their home, Bruce had refused to allow her to go. To him, acting was a creation of the devil.

  She could not do it. She really could not, even to please the duchess. How could she look at Alexander and speak words of love to him when she knew that he hated her so much? He had promised her the day before that he would think of a suitable way of punishing her for disobeying his command to stay away. She did not know if he had yet punished her enough. She really did not know if the night before had been the punishment or not.

  He had come to her room when she was still brushing her hair before her mirror, clad in her usual linen nightgown, trimmed at neck and wrists with lace. He had not knocked, and she had gaped at his reflection in the mirror, the brush stilled against her hair.

  "Alexander," she had said foolishly, "what do you want?"

  He had raised his eyebrows and gazed back at her reflection, his expression cynical. "I wonder you ask," he had replied. "You came here of your own free will, madam. I assume that you came here to perform again your wifely duties."

  "No," she had said, putting down the brush with a clatter onto the dresser and spinning around to face him, "no, Alexander, please don't. Please."

  His cynical look had deepened. "1 am devastated, madam," he had said. "Am I to believe that my person is not desirable enough to you? I do not remember any words in the marriage service that said you owed me obedience only as long as you found me attractive."

  She had shaken her head and pressed against the hard edge of the dresser. How could she explain to him that her reluctance had nothing to with her feelings for him or her attraction to him. She could not bear to be taken out of contempt and even hatred. That had happened to her once before, and the experience had scarred her for a lifetime, she felt. Certainly she had never quite recovered from the feeling of degradation that had followed upon that night of ecstasy. Not again. Please, not again.

  His ringers had threaded their way through her hair until her head was his prisoner. "No," she had said, tears springing to her eyes. "Please, Alexander. Please. Oh, please."

  The trouble was, she admitted to herself now, that those pleadings had taken on a double meaning. He had kissed her throat as his hand opened her nightgown down the front, and she had become lost in her own desire for the man she had loved almost from the moment when she had first set eyes on him. Passion had flared in her with shockingly little resistance, and finally she had urged him on, pleading against his hair, against his cheek, and against his
mouth.

  It had not been a shared experience. She had abandoned herself to the passion that his expertise aroused with such ease. She had clung to him, opened to him, arched herself to his invasion, cried out to him, and shuddered against him at the end of it all. And then she had slept deeply with her cheek against his damp shoulder. But she had not known what had motivated him. He had not been tender, she knew that, but then neither had she. Their lovemaking had been too charged with emotion to allow for that. He had said nothing, not looked into her eyes once while he took her or afterward, and had not held her or touched her when it was over. But neither had he moved away from her touch when she had laid her cheek against his shoulder. And he had slept beside her all through the night, rising and leaving her room only when she awoke and moved her head to look at him. He had looked back, unsmiling, got out of the bed, pulled on his nightshirt and dressing gown without any appearance of embarrassment, and left the room without a word or a backward glance.

  "It still seems funny to me that Great-aunt Jemima has given me the part of Constance Neville," Prudence Raine was confiding to Anne, "when I have a sister Constance. It is going to be most confusing. But so exciting. I was secretly hoping that I would have one of the main parts, weren't you, Anne?"

  "I am paralyzed by terror," Anne replied. "I shall rely on you to help me learn how to act, Prudence."

  She looked across the room to Alexander, who was indulgently listening to an excited monologue by Freddie. Her insides performed a curious somersault. He looked so formal and impersonal dressed still in the riding clothes that he had worn for an early ride. And very, very handsome. Yet this was the man who had used her so intimately just a few hours before. Was the punishment over? Would he come to her again? How could she live if he did not? Her face suffused with color as he raised his head and looked full at her, the smile that had been donned for Freddie's benefit fading completely. He held her look until she turned away jerkily and smiled for no reason at all at Constance Raine, who sat quietly beside her.