Caversham’s Bride

Chapter Two-2

“Ren,” said Hakim, “I would like you to meet Ismael Ben Sabir, Royal Physician, and very close friend. Ismael, this is Marcus Renfield Halden, ninth Duke of Caversham. He also holds many other titles, which I cannot remember, and bears wealth equivalent to, if not greater than, the King of England.”

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Your Grace,” said Ismael, his English spoken with a lilting Arabic accent. “I have heard a great deal about you.” He bowed to Ren, then extended his hand.

“Please, I would be honored to have you call me Ren.” Shaking the newcomer’s hand, Ren continued, “I implore you not to believe all you’ve heard.” He turned a devilish grin on his old friend, Hakim. “Regardless of what he’s told you, Hakim is equally responsible for the scrapes we got into when we were younger.”

“I believe your words to be true. The same occurred when we were children.”

“It is amazing, is it not,” Hakim said while inspecting his nails with bored affectation, “how the years seem to mellow one’s life and retard one’s adventures through it?”

“If this afternoon was any indication, your adventures haven’t been hindered by your age in the least,” Ren replied.

“Do you know how difficult it is for someone such as myself to leave my prison home? I long to go about among my people without being considered a threat to my brother, the sultan.” Hakim motioned for his two guests to join him at the table. “And I have two other brothers and several nephews before me in succession to the crown! Thank Allah I was born when I was. A mere hundred years ago, I would have been killed when my brother ascended his throne.”

Ren waited for the prince to be seated and sat on the cushion next to his.

Hakim bowed his head over the table and gave thanks for their dinner. “Bismillah er-rahman er-rahim.” He translated it for Ren’s benefit, “In the name of God, the clement and merciful.” As custom dictated, Ren waited until the prince broke bread before taking any of his own.

“Ismael and I were childhood friends,” said Hakim. “His father and his father’s father before him were also royal physicians.” Tearing off a piece of bread, he continued, “Where you and I went to Oxford, Ismael went to Cairo to study medicine. Since his return, we have resumed our friendship.”

“Hakim tells me that you have been friends since your university days,” said Ismael. “You must have had some good times together. I know Hakim to be one who enjoys life to the fullest.”

“That he does,” Ren replied laughing. “Many times a bulldog dragged us from a pub when we should have been in our scheduled tutorials.”

Later, when dinner was done, and the mint tea served, Hakim turned to Ren. “So, tell me why you did not marry? The last letter I received from you said this was to be part of a wedding trip for you and your bride. I did not think you sailed your ships any longer.”

Ren looked at the empty cup in front of him. If he was to tell his tale, he needed something more substantial than tea. He pointed to his cup. “Do you have anything stronger?”

Hakim motioned to a servant and ordered him to bring a bottle of his best port and a box of cigars. “My years in England left me with an appreciation for your custom of port and cigars after dinner. But for religious reasons, I reserve this indulgence only for special occasions. My friend, this appears to be one such occasion.”

After dismissing the musicians, the men drank wine and lit up several of Hakim’s best Turkish cigars. In the relaxed atmosphere, Ren opened up to his old friend, and his new friend about the treachery of his own cousin.

“You know I never liked him,” Hakim said, “and I told you as much when we were in school.”

Ren sighed. “We had been close childhood friends until his mother remarried and moved to Cornwall. His father, my uncle, was never the same after coming home from war and died shortly after his return. Thomas was very young when he found his father dead in his office. I know Thomas went through a difficult time adjusting to Admiral Linley as a stepfather, God knows he was a cruel man,” Ren paused to draw from his cigar, “Thomas didn’t live under the man’s roof but a few months of the year because we were at school. That is, until he quit attending his classes.” He puffed hard on the cigar until it glowed. “I don’t understand. If things were so bad, why not stay with me? I would have shared my bachelor apartment with him.”

“Perhaps he thought of you as part of the problem,” the physician said.

Hakim nodded and motioned to a servant to refill his glass. “So what did he do, exactly?”

Ren gave a sardonic chuckle. “Where do I begin?”

“Start with the affianced bride,” Hakim said. “Did you love her?”

“He had to have cared,” replied the physician, “else he’d not be in this mood.”

“Lady Margaret was a diamond for the past two seasons. Beautiful and well-connected, she would have made a fine duchess.”

“But you didn’t love her,” Hakim stated.

“What is love but an emotion to render a man weak,” Ren replied. “Lady Margaret would have been pleasant enough to create the required heirs upon, and well-educated in the duties of the station. I would have provided very well for her, and after a few years and a few children, she could have gone to the continent and taken a lover or two or whatever.”

“My friend, that is why you lost her to another. You didn’t love her, and she sensed a lifetime of drudgery, albeit a gilded type of drudgery, with you.”

“You do not understand our culture,” Ren replied, “for all that you studied in my homeland for five years.”

“And you, my friend, do not understand women,” Hakim stated, already starting to slur his words. “When you have as many as I do, you learn that to keep the peace you must love each one for who she is. Never take her for granted, or compare her to another. Else jealousy sets in and your life is miserable thereafter.”

“So,” the physician said getting back to Ren’s aborted marriage plans, “the pain you are experiencing obviously does not come from losing the bride. So it must be from losing the relationship with your cousin. Is that right?”

Ren nodded. “He and I were close as children. By the time you joined our group at school, he’d already begun his downward slide.

“When he left University prematurely, he began to live a life of debauchery and gambling.” Ren rubbed his forehead in frustration and glanced at Ismael. “It is not as though we didn’t have our fun, too,” he turned to Hakim and asked, “is that not right?” Turning back to the physician, he added, “But his was excessive. He’d disappear into the bowels of Town and not surface for weeks, months even. And when he did, it was to ask my father for an advance on his allowance.

“After school, I began to sail with my uncle, and didn’t see Thomas for a few years. It was while I was at sea that my father and stepmother died in an accident that many said was suspicious, but there was never any proof of foul play. Their carriage went off the road into a deep ravine.” He cleared his throat, the lump growing somewhat painful with the telling of the tale. “My stepmother was carrying another child. They were both wishing for a second son.”

Ren thought back to the pain of losing his father and stepmother, it wasn’t something he wanted to ever go through again. Unlike most of his set, he actually loved his father and respected him.

“All was going fairly well until a few months ago. Thomas sent a note that he needed to speak to me. I invited him to come to Haldenwood, and asked him to stay for the holidays because I was planning to announce my betrothal over Christmas. According to his letter, I expected him to arrive on a Thursday afternoon. He didn’t appear. I thought he was just delayed, and that surely he’d come. Two days later, he’d sill not arrived, and I went out on a stag hunt with a few of the local gentry. Someone shot at me as I rode through a field. I was not hit, but my horse was. I had to finish off my favorite stallion right there.

“My game-keeper immediately went to where the shot came from, and gave chase. He got a good look at the man as he rode away.”

“Tell me no,” Hakim whispered.

Now feeling a surprising lack of emotion, Ren nodded. “A few weeks later, as my grandmother was preparing for Lady Margaret’s family to descend upon Haldenwood for the holidays, we receive word that my soon-to-be-bride is very ill and unable to attend. I sent my family physician to see to her, and he returns with a most shocking tale. It seems she miscarried a child that was not mine. And what’s worse, in her fevered delirium, she called out for my cousin.”

The three men sat in silence for several long minutes, digesting the tale Ren had just relived for them. It felt good to actually speak of it all, knowing the men he told would never betray his trust. He’d not been able to speak of it so thoroughly before, because not long after the incident with Margaret, Ren had left England, without speaking of his emotions to anyone. Including his closest friend, Michael.

He inhaled deeply from his cigar, and exhaled as he spoke. “If something were to happen to me, Thomas is next in line to inherit.” He raked a hand over his face to wipe away the growing emotion. Once he had that under control, he continued, “I have my grandmother, and sisters, Elise and Sarah, to think of. Now I must see to finding another suitable bride to make a duchess. She must be pleasant to look upon, and accomplished in the skills necessary to do the job.”

Hakim laughed. “You sound as though you were purchasing a horse or hound. Was there no affection? I desire my wives a great deal, all six of them, as well as the thirty-two other women in my harim.”

“Even a man of your position should have a wife he desires. Not one that ‘will do,’” said the physician. “Find a woman you desire, take her to wife, then see to creating the heir. That is the order of things.”

“I have to agree with him there.” Hakim stated. “We are fast approaching thirty years. I’ve known younger men to die of natural causes.” He took another long swig of his wine. “Is there no other suitable female in all of England who is still virtuous?”

“If there are, they must still be in the schoolroom,” Ren replied sarcastically, exhaling a cloud of smoke. Spontaneous laughter erupted as Hakim re-filled his glass, and then Ren’s, finishing off the bottle.

“I dread going through all the pretense again to find the proper wife. You know I do not do the social games well.” He lifted his glass, and stared into the contents. “Yet, it seems I must again play the town dandy to find a bride. It tires and bores me.” Pushing back from the table, Ren prepared to rise. “But, ’tis just one of the necessary evils a man must endure, I suppose, to continue the family line.” Fed up with the topic, Ren turned to the men. “Excuse me, please. I must leave now, if I am to assist a certain green-eyed waif.”

Ismael looked puzzled and Ren explained.

Afterward, the physician turned to Hakim. “You know,” he said casually, “if he were Muslim he could buy his way out of his current predicament.”

Hakim and Ismael exchanged foxed grins, Hakim’s eyes becoming mischievously bright. “Of course! There’s your solution!”

“That is not an option,” Ren countered flatly.

“Your options,” Hakim asserted with a flourish of his hand, “are limitless. You are the Duke of Caversham after all. Think anyone would go against you should you legitimize a bastard born of a mistress?” Hakim took a sip of his wine, and made sure Ren understood him before continuing. “I think not, my friend.”

“Impossible. There are others to consider, my responsibility to my family, my duty to my title, my heritage, and social mores.”

“The Ren I know would not be concerned with the opinions of others,” Hakim replied.

“I simply wish to secure the release of a woman I’m sure was illegally procured.” Remembering the desperation on her face, Ren added, “If you had seen the look in her eyes you would agree.” He stood to leave. “She probably has a family at home desirous of her safe return, and I would take her back. If she were one of my sisters, I would hope for the same.”

Hakim and Ismael stood, intending to accompany him.

“If you come with me,” Ren lectured, “there will be no such discussion again. I am only about freeing a despairing waif.”

“I promise to be on my bess behavior, Your Grace,” the prince drawled. A servant filled a large flask with the port as Hakim instructed and handed it to him.

“You are going to have a hell of a cracked skull tomorrow.” Ren tossed back the remaining contents of his glass.

“Only because I have not imbibed since your last visit.”

Ren quirked an eye to Ismael for confirmation, and the physician nodded knowingly.

“Mayhap your green-eyed runaway will turn out to be a fantasy in the flesh,” Hakim said, linking arms with Ismael, as the two headed from the room. “A woman to stir the loins,” Hakim paused, exchanging a look with the physician, “and possibly the heart.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Ren muttered, following the two from the dining hall.