Waiting Game Read Free Page B

better apologize to James for depriving him of his gloves.”
    “Gloves!” scoffed Mrs. Colquhoun with uncharacteristic vehemence. “What that young man needs is a wife!”
    “Now, don’t you start in on him too! Poor James has enough to bear with his sisters trying to marry him off.”
    “Well, I don’t say they aren’t right, although Isabella might find her brother more open to her advice if she were to dispense it with a lighter hand. But I wasn’t talking about James. I meant your Mr. Pickett.”
    “Oh. Well, he’s got a wife. Therein lies the problem.”
    Her eyes grew round with surprise. “He’s married? To whom, pray?”
    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
    Naturally, this assertion did nothing to diminish her curiosity, and so Mr. Colquhoun was obliged to remind her of his recent trip to Scotland in the company of his youngest Runner, and to explain how it had resulted in Mr. Pickett’s being bound in a Scottish marriage by declaration with Lady Fieldhurst, widow of the late viscount.
    “Married to a viscountess!” exclaimed Mrs. Colquhoun at the end of this narrative. “What do they intend to do?”
    “Her ladyship is seeking an annulment, although it has yet to come before the ecclesiastical court.”
    Not for nothing was Janet Colquhoun married to a magistrate. “An annulment, you say? On what grounds? They are both of legal age, and I can’t see how fraud would be a valid claim in this case.”
    “No. The only possibility that even remotely applies is impotence.”
    “Oh dear, what a pity! His, or hers?”
    “Between you and me and the lamppost, it’s neither. But since her ladyship has been married before—during which time her husband must surely have filed his own complaint based on such a condition—and Mr. Pickett can offer no proof to the contrary, the burden falls on him.”
    “ ‘No proof to the contrary,’ ” she echoed thoughtfully. “Do you mean—?”
    He nodded. “Precisely. Although he assures me that he has no reason to believe he couldn’t, the situation has never come up.” He frowned at his own last words. “If you will pardon the unintentional pun.”
    Mrs. Colquhoun, however, had no interest in puns, intentional or otherwise, for a new thought had occurred to her. “My love, do you suppose our James is still a—”
    “I don’t know, and I beg you not to ask him,” he interrupted hastily.
    “No, of course I won’t. I only wondered—mothers do, you know. But it seems to me that Mr. Pickett must love this lady very much, to make such a sacrifice for her sake.”
    The magistrate sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right, my dear. He has been besotted with her from the first, but I had thought that once it was clear she would not stand trial for her husband’s murder, he would recognize the hopelessness of such an attachment, and fix his interest on a more attainable object. It appears I was wrong, however. If anything, he’s in a worse case now than he was before.”
    “And Lady Fieldhurst? What are her sentiments, do you know?”
    “Does it matter? Even if she loved him desperately, such a match would be impossible. Only imagine if our James’s employer were to die, and James wed his widow.”
    Her bosom swelled in maternal indignation. “I’m sure our James is good enough for anyone!”
    “ You know that, and I know that, but try telling the beau monde that, and see what reaction you get! And our James is connected, albeit distantly, to Sir James Colquhoun of Luss. John Pickett, on the other hand, is the son of a transported felon, and God only knows what other bad apples one might shake out of his family tree. Any such marriage would be social suicide, and her ladyship is wise enough in the ways of her world to know it. Still, this annulment business is weighing heavily on the lad’s mind. That’s why I didn’t want to leave him alone on Christmas Day to dwell on it.”
    As he passed through the drawing room door, she slipped her