THIRTY-SEVEN
The next morning Shrewsbury arrived at Chatsworth, determined to settle matters once and for all. With blazing eyes Bess took him into the library and carefully closed all the doors. He propped himself on the edge of her carved oak desk, while she paced up and down the room like a tigress. She knew she must convince him that she had not set a trap for him, so she snatched the offensive position before he did.
“Why did you have to lie to them? If you did it out of some ridiculous chivalrous notion that it would save my reputation, you have insulted me. If it was to save your own face, you've just made matters worse.”
“I didn't lie to them; we are going to be married,” he said implacably.
She knew by his tone that he would have it all his own way. He would concede her nothing. He was a law unto himself, and she protested with the only argument she could think of. “You are the Earl of Shrewsbury. You cannot marry the minute your wife dies; the scandal would be horrendous! My reputation would be blackened beyond redemption. They would say I trapped you into marriage because I am an avaricious bitch! My own brother accuses me of marrying one man after another to acquire property.” She stopped before him and threw out her hands. “If I married you my name would be dragged through the mud from one end of England to the other.”
He reached out and took firm hold of her hands, forcing her to stop pacing. He spoke quietly. “Women will always gossip about you, Bess, because they are jealous of your beauty and envious of your sexual attraction.” He slanted a dark brow. “Do you really care what people think or say about you?”
“I don't care what they say, so long as it's true! I am no plaster saint! I freely admit to being ambitious. But what nobody seems to realize, including you, is that I am more ambitious for my children than I am for myself! Don't you think I would love to be Countess of Shrewsbury and lord it over everyone?”
“Then marry me, for Christ's sake!”
“No, Shrew, I'm returning to Court,” she said quietly.
“I forbid it!” He jumped up, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her like a rag doll. “I forbid it, do you hear me?” He was in a towering rage and determined to show her who was master. “At Court you attract men like bees to a honeypot! I let you escape me once; I'm not such a bloody fool as to let it happen again!”
“Are these arrogant commands your way of saying that you love me, you black devil?”
“Oh, Vixen, you know I love you—I adore you!” His arms enfolded her and held her tight against his heart. “If you'll marry me you can have your damned lawyers draw up any kind of a marriage settlement you want. If you're happy, I'm happy.”
“I'm going to be the next Countess of Shrewsbury!” Bess made the announcement to her mother, Jane, and Marcella as if she didn't quite believe it.
Her mother and Jane were absolutely speechless. Marcella looked at her with startled admiration. “What a clever girl you are, Bess. I told your mother when you were still a child that you would be our salvation, and my prophesy has always proven true.”
“But Shrewsbury is the most powerful earl in the land,” her mother protested. “Are you certain his intentions are honorable?”
Bess threw back her head and laughed. “I know the difference between a proposition and a proposal—I should, I've had more than my share of both!”
“Bess!” her mother reproved. “You'll have to watch your tongue and your temper, or you'll lose him, mark my words.”
“We are well-suited. 'Tis a match made in heaven!” Bess laughed as if she had just said the funniest thing in the world and hurried back up to the library to write her letter to her lawyers.
The women looked at each other and shook their heads in disbelief. “Do you think it's true?” asked her mother doubtfully.
Jane said, “It's quite possible. Bess isn't like other people; she's unique.”
“But they are both so dominant and willful. Their strong personalities are so totally unsuited, they will clash every day of their married life.” Her mother shuddered. “What could possibly have attracted him?”
Marcella pursed her lips. “It's the breasts—it's got to be the breasts. There is no other answer!”
It was now impossible for Bess and Shrewsbury to see each other alone. There could be no flagrant behavior between the earl and the lady he intended to make the Countess of Shrewsbury. Though the upcoming marriage was not yet common knowledge, once their families, their lawyers, and their servants knew, there was no hope of keeping it secret.
Bess gathered her sons and daughters together and gave them the momentous news that Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, was going to be their stepfather. Her sons were aware of the great power and prestige of Shrewsbury, who had made it possible for William to be accepted at Cambridge. Her young daughters were more interested in the prospect of having three new sisters to play with.
When Shrewsbury told his children he was going to marry Lady St. Loe, they were overjoyed. The older ones would have a confidante and a buffer against their autocratic father, and the younger ones would have a mother who not only laughed and played games but actually gathered them in her arms and sat them on her knee.
At Bess's insistence Shrewsbury brought his family to visit at Chatsworth for a few days, and little Grace Talbot fell in love with the place. It was such a beautiful new house, in stark contrast to the massive and gloomy Sheffield Castle and the fortified Wingfield, where she had spent most of her life.
Bess and Francis Talbot became allies when she promised to see that he and his bride would get their own wing at Sheffield once she was officially his stepmother. And when she saw that her eldest son, Henry Cavendish, and Gilbert Talbot were becoming fast friends, she promised to persuade Shrewsbury to allow them a grand tour of Europe, as the earl had had in his youth.
Bess seemed undaunted at the prospect of doubling the size of her family and becoming mother of twelve, and to help Shrewsbury get used to the idea, she suggested they make a progress together that would include all her properties and all his. When Bess saw romantic Rufford Abbey, she was so enchanted that Shrewsbury knew he had found the place to take her for their honeymoon and began to make secret plans.
In the meantime the Earl of Shrewsbury's attorneys met with Lady St. Loe's and began to thrash out a marriage settlement. His lawyers were appalled that he was willing to concede so much and argued against it. Hers were astonished that she was driving such a hard bargain, when any other woman in the realm would have taken him on any terms whatsoever. The negotiations between the lawyers went back and forth, dragging on for three weeks to a stalemate.
The earl's impatience grew daily, until finally he declared he had had enough. He and Bess sat down together with their lawyers and dictated how the papers were to be drawn up for their signatures. Bess would be entitled to a wife's share of the vast Talbot wealth, which encompassed money, land, estates, lead and coal mines, ironworks, and a thriving wool market with overseas exports. And in a separate document she also was allowed to retain her Hardwick, Cavendish, and St. Loe landholdings and the income they brought in for her lifetime, to be passed in succession to any children she and the earl might produce together. The only exclusion was Chatsworth, and a legal paper was drawn up deeding her magnificent house to her eldest son and heir, Henry Cavendish. On top of everything else, Shrewsbury very generously agreed to give her other two sons, William and Charles, considerable lump sums of money when they became twenty-one.