Page 30 of A Marriage is Arranged
But it was the day before the Ball that filled Louise with even greater fear and longing. It was the beginning of the second two-week period of her marriage. It was two weeks and one day since her wedding night. It meant her husband might visit her that night. Of course, it could be any day, but Louise faced it with a barely controlled constant quiver of excitement. She hoped he might say something at lunch, but when she saw him he was even more frowning than usual.
“Has there been a problem in the House?” she asked.
“Some damned fool has told the Prince Regent there’s a plan afoot to attack him and now he won’t step foot outside the palace. What a mess!”
Louise wanted to ask any number of questions, but seeing his scowl, bit her tongue.
In fact, Gareth was wrestling with the subject of the night ahead too. She would have been both glad and dismayed to know what he was thinking. He was eager to repeat the experience of their wedding night, but his wife’s calm, cheerful demeanor since that event had led him to believe she didn’t care one way or the other. Then there was the likely dampening effect on his boxing. The more he mulled it over, the more irritated he became. The Prince Regent’s movements, or lack of them, were a minor irritant.
So their luncheon ended and they went their separate ways, both dissatisfied .
Louise had wanted to see the sights of London and had dragged Rose to St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, but what the girl really wanted to see was the wild beasts at the Tower of London. Over the years foreign potentates had given gifts of exotic animals to the Crown and they were housed there. To relieve her preoccupations, Louise decided this was the day they would go. Accordingly, when she and Rose went out for their usual walk, she surprised the maid by hailing a hackney to take them there.
The trip took them east, past St. James’s Palace, where Louise smiled to herself, imagining the Prince Regent peeping out from behind the curtains for sight of anyone who might be coming to attack him. They passed the enormous and elaborate King’s Mews, finally arriving on the bank of the Thames. Small boats and ferries plied their trade here, but as they approached the Tower they could see the massed sails of tall ships clustered close to the bridge. It looked as if one could walk across from ship to ship without touching the water. And one would not want to touch the water, for it stank!
“Pooh!” said Rose, holding her nose. “Fancy living down ’ere! I never smelled anything so bad in me life, not even old man Thomas’s pig pens back ’ome!”
It had turned into a very windy day, in fact Louise was worried this weather might continue the next day and spoil her al fresco arrangements for the Ball. They decided that if they were going to get all blown about, they would do it just before going home and visit the inside displays first. These were all Rose could have hoped for. She sighed over the story of the bones of the Little Princes found in the Bloody Tower, and shuddered at the rack and manacles used to extract information or confessions from prisoners in the torture chamber.
“I’d tell ’em anything they wanted to know!” she said. “They wouldn’t even ’ave to start! ”
After that, the animals seemed somewhat of a let-down. Rose said they looked very much like what she had seen in her books at school. She liked the lions, though, commenting that they didn’t look very fierce. “More like big pussy cats,” she said.
“I doubt they’d seem like that if you were in the cage with them,” Louise laughed. “But let’s find a hackney. This wind is blowing me to bits and my hair is all in my face. I must have done my braid looser than usual. Anyway, we should be getting home.”
It was quite late by the time they arrived, and the Earl, returning from an afternoon session in the House, was astonished to see what looked like two untidy maidservants descending from a dilapidated hackney carriage in front of Shrewsbury House. They were laughing together at something, and it wasn’t until one of them turned to pay the driver that he realized it was his wife. Strands of hair were emerging wildly from a bonnet with a vivid yellow lining that did nothing for her complexion, and the pelisse she was wearing hung off her shoulders. Good Lord, he thought . Is this what she looks like when she goes out? And why didn’t she take one of the carriages instead of that atrocious vehicle ?
He hung back until the pair had gained entrance to the house and had time to go upstairs before going in himself.
“I just saw her ladyship descending from the most God-awful vehicle,” barked the Earl, handing his caped riding coat and beaver to the butler. “Why didn’t she have a carriage?”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” came the reply. “She didn’t indicate she would be needing one when she went on her walk today.”
“I don’t like to see her with no protection. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Not waiting for a response, Gareth took himself upstairs and without knocking, went into his wife’s rooms.
Rose had just unbuttoned Louise’s old gown and slipped it off her shoulders. It fell in a puddle around her feet as they both stared at the Earl.
He stared back. “I, er, I….”
For a man accustomed to speaking in the House of Lords, words came with unusual difficulty to the Earl as he contemplated his half-clothed wife. Then he collected himself.
“Thank you, er, Rose, isn’t it? That will be all.”
Rose glanced anxiously at her mistress, who, her face flaming, nodded briefly and stepped out of the gown. Rose scooped it up in a bundle and left.