Anne Barbour by Kateand the Soldier Page B

accepted Lucius’s assistance in settling into a wing chair by the fire. Lucius drew chairs for himself and Kate, and they sat watching David expectantly.
    “What has Mr. Smollett been telling you all this time?” asked Kate. “Have you spoken to Aunt Regina yet? Oh, David how could this have happened? I mean, for Uncle Thomas to ...”
    “And how about Lawrence the Dreadful?” put in Lucius. “I could hear him squealing all the way up to my room. You’ve made an enemy there, David.”
    David nodded wearily. “Not that we were ever what one could call close,” he added.
    He pulled from inside his coat pocket the letter Mr. Smollett had given him.
    “This pretty much explains everything,” he said quietly. “But I still find it hard to believe. You see ...”
    “Perhaps I should leave you two,” interrupted Lucius in a diffident tone.
    “No, please.” David laid a restraining hand on his friend’s sleeve. “I very much need all the counsel and advice I can get right now. In fact, I was just going to ask if you would mind remaining here for an extended length of time.”
    “Absolutely, old man. Father would give me the finest trimming of my life if I left while I can still be of use to you.”
    “That’s all right, then. Now, about the letter. As you know, Father dictated it to Mr. Smollett a few days before he died. He tells of his meeting with Felice Wharburton, the daughter of a minor government functionary on Barbados. Her grandmother was pure Carib Indian, so Felice was very much a product of the Islands, and beautiful beyond imagining, according to Father, with dark, uptilted eyes and skin the color of wild honey. They began to see each other, much against the wishes of her father, who saw in the interest of Thomas, Lord Standing as he was then, only the dalliance of a wealthy, young peer.
    “Felice was a devout Catholic, and she was overcome with guilt when she conceived Thomas’s child. She was afraid to tell her father. At about that time, she became very ill with an unidentified fever. As the child grew within her, she became progressively worse. Thomas desperately wished to marry Felice, and as she became more ill and more racked with guilt, he determined to do so.
    “He arranged to have banns read on one of the tiny island dependencies of Grenada, and they married in the Catholic church there. However, he also obtained a special license through the offices of a good friend, who managed to keep the transaction a secret. This young man, and one other, volunteered to act as witnesses, and traveled with Thomas and Felice to another remote village, where there lived an eccentric, retired British cleric. This gentleman performed a second, Church of England ceremony, after which the couple went back to Felice’s home and delivered the glad news to her father.
    “Mr. Wharburton was ecstatic to learn that his daughter had become, in the twinkling of an eye, the Viscountess Standing and the future Countess of Falworth, and it was all Thomas could do to prevent his new father-in-law from dashing off a letter full of felicitations to Westerly. Thomas persuaded him to keep the marriage a secret until after the child was born, feeling that the family would take the whole thing better when presented with a child—hopefully an heir. Actually, he confessed in the letter that he was merely trying to put off the inevitable. Poor Father, he was made literally sick at the thought of the consequences of his action. His eyes were not so blinded by love that he could not picture with horrific clarity the reception he would get at Westerly when he appeared home with a bride of the Indies on his arm.
    “When Felice died giving birth to her son, she was buried in the village where her mother had been raised, and I was given into the temporary care of one of Felice’s maternal relatives. Here, fate took an unexpected, and, I might add, a bizarre hand.
    “The night of Felice’s funeral was a black and rainy one.