Carola Dunn (25 page)

“No!” cried Fanny instantly, horrified. “No, it is excessively generous of you, but I cannot give her up.”

“It would make your lives much simpler,” Isaac pointed out in his sober way, “and I believe she would be happy here. Take some time to consider and talk it over.”

“I don’t need to.” Fanny cast a look of frantic appeal at her brother. Surely he must agree!

With a somewhat rueful grimace, Frank came staunchly to her support. “It’s not that we don’t think she’d be happy, but her father was my friend and she’s been part of our family pretty much since she was born. It wouldn’t be right to hand her over, even to you, as if she were a foundling.”

“Bravo!” Felix exclaimed, with such heartfelt relief that Fanny felt he had shared her trepidation.

“We expected you to choose to keep her,” said Miriam with approval. “Fanny, Hannah will go with us to London, but you are accustomed to taking care of Anita yourself. If you wish to have a truckle bed for her moved into your chamber, just tell Samuels.”

“But we ought not to remain here when you are gone,” Fanny protested. “I cannot believe it is proper to stay on in one’s hosts’ absence.”

“My dear, pray do not be nonsensical. Where else should you go?”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lip, suddenly longing for the uncomplicated support of her military “family.”

“It doesn’t seem right,” her brother again seconded her.

She looked from him, still an invalid though much recovered, to Anita and back. “We have no real choice, Frank.”

“Yes, you do,” said Felix nonchalantly. “I’ll take you to Westwood.”

Fanny was not the only one stunned into silence.

After a moment, Miriam said calmly, “An excellent solution. Now I really must go and make arrangements for our departure.” She went into the house.

Following her, Isaac turned on the threshold and said, “If you don’t mind waiting until tomorrow, I shall send back our carriage to take you to Somerset. It’s more comfortable than anything you can hire around here.”

Felix thanked him, just as Fanny found her voice. “But your family!” She envisioned a house filled with Lady Sophias, cold, haughty, aloof, contemptuous of the lowly Ingrams.

“I told Connie about you and she’s eager to meet you,” he said evasively.

“And your parents?”

“Any family in England should be proud to welcome a wounded hero of Waterloo.”

“Quite a hero!” said Frank. “Blown up by his own shell.” He grinned suddenly. “Come on, Fan, I’m sure Lord and Lady Westwood are too polite to throw us out on our respective ears. Let’s take our chance to see how the nobility lives.”

Felix forestalled her protest. “Good, that’s settled then. Frank, let me help you in. You’ll want to be rested for tomorrow.”

They left her on the terrace with the baby and the children, still engrossed by their sticks and stones.

Already servants were running about, making preparations for the Cohens’ journey. Felix assisted Frank to his chamber, then returned to the terrace. Fanny was gone, no doubt having taken the children to the nursery. He desperately wanted to talk to her, but not surrounded by listening ears.

He had not intended to take her to Westwood before they were betrothed. Even then, he’d planned to go down in advance to persuade his parents to accept her before she had to face them. Fate had intervened. Now, his need to declare his love was urgent, so that he’d have the right to protect her against his parents’ disfavour.

A private conversation was obviously impossible until the Cohens left and peace returned to the household. He went in search of Miriam to see if there was anything he could do to help.

She was in her stillroom, directing the packing in straw of the potions she expected to need in Town. When he arrived, she dismissed the maid and set him to work in her place.

“Make sure glass does not touch glass. I take it Lady Sophia refused you?”

“No, I never asked her.”

Miriam looked worried. “She was not in Town?”

“Oh yes, on her way to Paris. I made all right and tight with the marquis, and then I sat with the Goddess for twenty minutes, alone together, discussing Paris and Brussels and Mary Wollstonecraft.”

“Felix, you didn’t! The poor girl must have thought you fit for Bedlam. So you simply ran shy.”

“No, I simply realized I didn’t want to marry her after all. I want to marry Fanny.”

“You have come to your senses at last!”

He stared, nonplussed. That wasn’t at all the reaction he had expected to his blunt announcement. “What the deuce do you mean?”

“Gudgeon,” she said affectionately. “You have been in love with Fanny this age. I was afraid you would discover it too late.”

“It was a near-run thing. You might have told me!”

“I would have. Isaac stopped me. He said one simply cannot go around telling people whom they love, especially if they are under the impression they love someone else.”

“I suppose not,” he admitted, grinning. “Oh, Miriam, I can’t wait to show her how I adore her.”

“You must. Don’t rush your fences, Felix. Wait a while before you propose.”

“Why? I want her to know at once that I love her.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “You are such a very straightforward person. Remember that only this morning you went up to London to make Lady Sophia your wife! Tell Fanny you have changed your mind, but give her time to adjust. Besides, if she chooses not to accept your offer, she will feel unable to accept your invitation to Westwood.”

His heart sank. “Will she have me, Miriam?”

“Now, how can I answer for her? Whether she does or no, your parents are less likely to take the Ingrams’ arrival amiss if you are not betrothed, are they not?”

“Probably,” he said grudgingly.

“Let them become acquainted with her first. Let them find out what a dear she is.”

“She is, isn’t she? A darling!” Restored to euphoria, he agreed to wait and finished packing her jars and bottles.

He went up to the nursery. Amos and Anita, in their nightgowns, were eating their supper under Fanny’s eye while Hannah and the nursery maid packed.

“Uncle Felix, I’m going to London,” said Amos importantly.

“I been to Brussels and lots and lots of places,” Anita reminded him.

“I’m going to see Grammama an’ Grampapa.”

Anita’s mouth drooped. “I don’t...haven’t got a Grammama.”

Felix wanted to tell her that she soon would have, as soon as he married her Tía Fanny and legally adopted her. On the other hand, he couldn’t guarantee a warm reception from her adopted grandparents. “You’ll soon have two new aunts,” he promised, “Aunt Connie and Aunt Vickie, when we reach Westwood.”

“What’s Westwood?”

“My home. We are going there tomorrow, you and me and Aunt Fanny and Uncle Frank.”

“Felix, I must talk to you about that,” said Fanny with a hint of desperation. “You and Frank seem to think it’s all settled but...Amos, careful!” She swooped on his cup as a wild gesture with a spoon missed it by a fraction of an inch. “Drink your milk before you spill it.”

“We’ll talk at dinner,” said Felix, retreating. By then, he’d have had time to marshal his rebuttals to the difficulties she was going to raise.

Retiring to the library to cogitate, he found Isaac packing books into a faded red leather box. In the general confusion, he had not told him yet about his change of heart. It wasn’t quite as easy as confiding in Miriam.

Idly he picked up a book from the table and opened it at random, as if it might suggest the right words to him. The pages were filled with unreadable squiggles.

“Can you really understand this stuff?” he asked.

“Hebrew? I’d hardly take the book up to London with me if I couldn’t,” said Isaac dryly. “How did your business in Town go?”

“I gave Rothschild my resignation this afternoon. You should have been there. It was almost as good as when he grassed the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.” Felix described the banker’s set-down of the choleric Duke of Oxshott.

Isaac laughed, but then said with a frown, “You resigned. Does that mean Lady Sophia accepted you?”

“As a matter of fact, I realized just in time that she is not at all the sort of wife I want.”

“So you have come to your senses at last!” he echoed his wife.

“I have been blind, have I not?” he said ruefully. “I thought I had learned from Miriam not to judge people by their station. I’ve been pleased with myself for my democratic notions, yet my parents’ pride still influenced me, made me unable to conceive of Fanny as more than a friend. I had no right to blame Lady Sophia for her arrogance. She behaves as she was taught, according to her upbringing as a nobleman’s daughter.”

“Ever since you first told us about her, I’ve wondered whether you were just reacting against having fallen in love with Miriam. Lady Sophia is so obviously suitable as a bride for the heir to an earldom, whereas Miriam would not have suited you at all.”

“If she had accepted me, I’d have persuaded my parents to overlook the Christian-Jew nonsense in the end.”

“I doubt it. For one thing, it’s not nonsense. But quite apart from that, Miriam is too strong-willed for you.”

“Are you claiming to be stronger than I?” Felix demanded indignantly.

“God forbid!” Isaac said, grinning. “No, the difference is that I’m willing to bend a little, whereas you would be irked beyond bearing by a wife who--let’s face it--is in many ways stronger than either of us. Besides, she does have some respect for my book-learning, to which you cannot lay claim.”

With a rueful laugh, Felix set down the Hebrew book. “True. It’s just as well she turned me down. Do you think Fanny will have me?”

“My dear fellow, I refuse to answer that. Most young women in her situation would jump at the chance, but Fanny is not like most young women.”

“If she was, I’d not love her as I do. You don’t think I have lost my senses again? You believe I love Fanny?”

“Oh yes, it’s been obvious for weeks.” He laughed at Felix’s grimace. “I doubt, however, that it is equally obvious to her, so don’t be in too much of a hurry to fling yourself at her feet.”

“That’s what Miriam said,” Felix grumbled to hide his pleasure at their affectionate concern. If he’d married Lady Sophia, she’d have tried to make him relinquish the friendship that meant so much to him. “Don’t the two of you have anything better to do than discuss my affairs?”

“At this moment, plenty. That’s the last book.” Isaac closed the chest and fastened the brass catch. “It’s time we were off.”

Ten minutes later, Felix, Fanny, and Anita waved goodbye from the front steps. Then Felix carried Anita up to the truckle bed set up in Fanny’s chamber and told her his own version of Jack the Giant Killer. As he talked he looked around the light, airy room, hung with white-sprigged blue muslin, and compared it with the cramped, dingy chamber Fanny and Anita had shared in Brussels.

Despite her initial misgivings, Fanny had quickly adapted to life at Nettledene. He trusted her to adjust equally fast to the ceremonious formality of Westwood, though it would not suit her as well. Once they were married, he’d insist on setting up a separate household in one of the wings, where she could be herself.

If she would marry him. The uncertainty daunted him as his doubts of Lady Sophia’s acceptance never had. How easily he had deceived himself!

First he had to get Fanny to Westwood, and he had had no chance to prepare his arguments. The best was that he loved her, and Miriam had advised against using that. He went down to dinner in a mood of considerable trepidation.

Mrs Samuels provided her usual excellent meal in spite of the disruption of the household. Samuels served them with green pea soup and withdrew.

“It’s all very well Frank saying your parents will not throw us out,” said Fanny at once, “but I cannot suppose they will welcome us, for all your talk of wounded heroes. Frank is no titled Guards officer.”

“I don’t want to mislead you, Fanny,” he said soberly. “They will not welcome you with open arms. But Westwood is my home, too, and they cannot choose my friends. I’ve kept my friendship with the Cohens from them for far too long.”

“To be forced upon people who don’t wish to know me!” she said in a stifled voice. “I had rather stay here.”

“Connie truly wishes to know you.”

Her eyes met his in a plea for reassurance. “Truly?”

“Yes, and she said she has longed this age to meet Miriam and Isaac, though she is a shy creature. What’s more, now I come to think of it, she said something about wishing she could help wounded soldiers, even before I told her about Frank and you and Anita.”

“Anita is another problem,” Fanny pointed out, agitated fingers pleating her napkin. “Lord and Lady Westwood will have every right to take offence at her presence, indeed, to refuse to receive a love-child in their house.”

Felix blenched. “No need to tell them,” he said hurriedly. “All we need say is that she is your ward. You have always been surrounded by people who know her history, so there has been no point in trying to conceal it, but for her sake you ought not to bruit it abroad.”

“You told Miriam and Isaac.”

“I would not deceive my friends. Parents are another matter.”

At that she smiled, shaking her head, and he looked relieved. “Oh, Felix, what an unprincipled rogue you sound, but it’s true, alas. One does not wish to worry one’s parents unnecessarily.”

“Don’t turn sanctimonious on me! One does not wish to be hauled over the coals for every little scrape one falls into. You will not feel obliged to reveal that Anita was born on the wrong side of the blanket?”

“Not unless I am asked, which, I own, is unlikely.”

“Then you will come to Westwood?”

He had an answer for each obstacle. She had given him every chance to withdraw his impulsive invitation and still he seemed genuinely eager, determined even, that they should go with him. But there was one more hurdle to cross, the highest of all.

“I...Oh, it is such an awkward situation!” Blushing, she stirred her cooling soup.

“What is?”

“Lady Sophia. If you are betrothed, surely she will visit Westwood and...”

“I am not betrothed.” He spoke quietly, without emphasis, without apparent chagrin, yet with an intensity Fanny could not interpret. “I am not going to marry Lady Sophia.”