Carola Dunn (28 page)

“He came to regret casting her off?”

“I suspect it would be more accurate to say that time and distance diminished his anger at her disobedience. Be that as it may, he left to her, or in equal parts between her legitimate offspring, all his unentailed possessions.” Pausing, he met her questioning brown eyes and steeled himself. She didn’t need his protection now, didn’t need the security he could offer her and Anita. His only hope was that she needed his love. “You are a very wealthy woman, Fanny.”

“Wealthy?” she whispered, turning very pale. For a moment he thought she was going to faint, but before he could move towards her she sprang to her feet. “I must tell Frank.”

He watched her run from the room, his heart twisting painfully within him.

No doubt his parents would be delighted to hear that the woman their son wanted to marry was an heiress and the niece of a duke--until they discovered that Miss Fanny Ingram’s only concern was her brother. Felix strode out to the stables, shouted for a horse, and galloped off across the fields, indifferent to the drenching rain.

Cold and famished, he returned to the house just in time to change for dinner. During his absence, Trevor had arrived. With his usual long-suffering air, the valet called for hot water and helped his master out of his sodden clothes. Felix was sinking into the luxurious warmth of his bath when his father’s man brought a summons to the earl’s dressing room.

Sighing, he washed quickly and climbed out again. With Trevor’s assistance, he was soon dressed in his austere, elegant black, his cravat arranged to a nicety, his shoes polished to a shine that only Trevor could achieve. He went and knocked on the earl’s door.

“Come in.” Dismissing his valet with a gesture, Lord Westwood attacked. “Your inamorata is both discourteous and impertinent. She kept me waiting for over an hour.”

Felix was astonished. He had been prepared for permission to court Fanny with all assiduity. “She had an unforeseen visitor, sir,” he said cautiously.

“So I understand: a vulgar, disreputable fellow such as one would expect her to consort with.”

Why had she not revealed her visitor’s business? Pride, he thought. She would not stoop to bargain for respect that was not freely offered.

The earl continued. “I attempted to impress upon her--for her own good--the discomfort the difference in station must cause her if she were to remain at Westwood. She had the impudence to respond that she would take my opinion into consideration!”

His admiration for Fanny redoubled, Felix grinned. “No doubt she will do just that,” he observed. “Miss Ingram is no fool.”

“No, you are the fool!”

“If you will excuse me, sir,” said Felix with dignity, “I want a word with Captain Ingram before dinner.”

Frank was settled in the room off the gallery, with his dinner on a tray. Not surprisingly, he was in high spirits. “I understand you have been protecting us from good fortune these several months,” he said, grinning.

“Yes, and when I think you might have avoided Quatre Bras...”

“Ah, I wager that’s why Fanny isn’t as pleased as she ought to be. She wouldn’t tell me. I’d never have sold out just before the battle, though.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“You haven’t told anyone else, have you? Fanny and I have decided to keep mum until we’ve finished with the legal formalities, though it seems that’s all that’s needed. She found our baptismal certificates among our mother’s papers and they settle the matter, according to Taggle. He thinks the lawyer will post down here at once as it’s a substantial estate.”

“Very substantial. My congratulations. You will stay here for the present, then?”

“If it is not inconvenient,” Frank said guardedly.

“Of course not. You ought not to undertake another journey so soon.”

“I’d just as soon not, especially as your sister has taken up Miriam’s good work. Lady Constantia is the loveliest, gentlest ministering angel a man could dream of. I’ve persuaded Fanny it would be bad for Anita to be moved, too. The poor child hated being parted from Amos, and here she already adores Lady Victoria. You are lucky in your sisters.”

“So are you,” said Felix with heartfelt sincerity, but his emotions were in a whirl. Fanny wished to leave Westwood. Was his parents’ coldness responsible, or was she afraid he would press an unwanted suit? She must know he would not persecute her with his attentions. He could not bear to see her unhappy.

* * * *

“Fanny is very unhappy,” Connie accused her brother. She had run him to earth in the stable yard, where he had just returned from a solitary ride. “How can you treat her so? I had not thought you so weak-willed as to crawl like a worm at Mama’s and Papa’s bidding.”

“A worm!” Felix noticed a stable boy smirking nearby and drew his militant sister through a brick archway into the English garden. “Their disapproval has nothing to do with it.”

“They have nothing to disapprove of any more, since you have been treating Fanny like a stranger for three days. This morning, Mama went so far as to commend her neat stitches. Have you changed your mind, Felix, as you did with Lady Sophia?”

He groaned. “I am deeper in love than ever. When I see her I want to...well, that’s not the sort of thing a fellow can discuss with his sister.”

Connie blushed and hid her face in a mass of pink and yellow honeysuckle. “Is that why you are avoiding her? You are afraid of...of losing control?”

“Good Lord, no! I hope I have more command over myself than that.”

“Then why?”

“Because she doesn’t need me any more, Con. I’m telling you this in confidence, mind. It turns out that she and Frank are closely related to the Duke of Oxshott and they have come into a fortune.”

“A fortune? And a noble family? Then what has she to be miserable about except your determination to avoid her?”

“Perhaps I have been too aloof,” he conceded warily. “After all, we are good friends.”

“Felix, you dear, blind idiot, she loves you. Why do you suppose she was in a quake at meeting Mama and Papa, when you have told me how intrepid she is? Why did she come to Westwood despite her fears, when she might have stayed comfortably at Nettledene?”

“Why did she say ‘I cannot’ when I asked her to marry me?”

“Did you tell her you love her?”

He thought back. “No,” he admitted. “I told her I’d adopt Anita and that I don’t care a fig for my parents’ opinion. And we were interrupted.”

“There you are, then. It is all a stupid misunderstanding, I vow. Perhaps she was going to say, ‘I cannot refuse though I feel I ought.’ You wait here in the honeysuckle bower and I shall send her to you.”

It seemed to Felix he waited forever, pacing between fragrant, overgrown beds of clove pinks and candytuft. Could Connie possibly be right? Was that what Miriam had meant when she called him blind--blind to Fanny’s feelings as well as his own? Was that why she had warned him against flirting with Fanny? Had he hurt her?

He’d rather die than hurt her. He dared not hope she could love such a crass, insensitive brute.

* * * *

Fanny was in the nursery, watching Anita and Vickie walking about with books balanced on their heads. The governess made Vickie do it to improve her carriage. As far as Anita was concerned, anything Vickie did, she did, too. With a natural grace, she excelled at book-balancing.

When Connie came in, both girls lost their concentration and their books at once. They fell into a fit of giggles and Fanny summoned up a smile.

Smiling took a tremendous effort. Everything took an effort. Nothing seemed worth doing since Felix had made it so very plain that he didn’t really want to marry her. Now that she was wealthy, his chivalrous generosity was unneeded, but he didn’t have to avoid her. Did he think she’d pursue him, insist on holding him to his offer?

Why, oh why, did Frank insist on staying at Westwood when all she wanted was to flee?

“Fanny, may I have a word with you?” Connie’s voice broke in upon her misery. She sounded agitated, determined yet a trifle unsure of herself.

“Of course.” Fanny dragged herself from her chair and followed Connie out into the passage. A sudden alarm disrupted her lethargy. “Is Frank...?”

“Captain Ingram is better every day. I’m sure he is too much recovered to have a sudden relapse. Fanny, I feel like a horrid busybody but I must speak. My brother...You and Felix...Oh, dear, I am making a dreadful muddle of this.”

Fanny turned hot all over, then cold. “Felix?” she faltered.

“You and he have unfinished business, do you not? He is waiting for you in the English garden. Will you go to him?” Connie begged.

“The English garden?” she repeated stupidly. “Waiting for me?”

Connie gave her a little push. “Go on.”

She started towards the stairs at a sedate pace, then suddenly her feet sprouted wings. Felix waiting for her? How long would he wait? In time with her racing pulse, she ran down the stairs, across the hall, oblivious of startled servants and Lady Westwood’s scandalized stare.

Approaching the garden, her footsteps slowed. Unfinished business, Connie had said. Perhaps she had persuaded her brother that he must explain his coolness. Perhaps he simply wanted to be quite certain that she had not misunderstood his reasons for offering his hand. Daunted, she hesitated as she reached the end of the laurel hedge.

She wished she had stopped to put on her hat and gloves. At least she could have preserved her dignity instead of letting him see how desperately she wanted him.

Pride drove her on, pride and an unquenchable hope. Her heart fluttered in her breast as she turned the corner into the English garden.

* * * *

It seemed to Felix that he waited forever, pacing as he considered and discarded openings. Yet Fanny must have hurried for when at last she appeared she was hatless and out of breath. The sun gilded her curls as she approached along the gravel path, her footsteps tentative. He still had not found the words he needed.

So he simply said, “I love you.”

“Oh, Felix!” She ran the last few steps and then her arms were about his waist, her head against his chest. A little sob escaped her as he hugged her closer. “I thought you were just being kind.”

Attempting to kiss her, he got a mouthful of curls, so he picked her up and carried her into the arbour. Seated on the bench with her nestled in his lap, kissing was so much easier that he went on doing it for some time. Her mouth was warm and sweet, irresistible, and her slender body was well-nigh irresistible too. She didn’t appear to mind his roving hands, but at last he called himself sternly to order and moved her to the seat beside him--close beside him, with his arm round her in case she took it into her head to move away, though he didn’t believe there was much likelihood of that.

“Kind?” he asked dreamily.

“I thought you were being kind, offering Anita and me a home because you had given up hope of Lady Sophia. Then suddenly Frank and I were rich so we didn’t need a home any longer, but I was very tempted to accept anyway, so I ran away to avoid temptation. And you began to ignore us, so I was certain that your offer was just made out of kindness.”

“My darling widgeon, I ignored you because you ran away. I didn’t want to harass you. And where did you get the idea that I had given up hope of Lady Sophia? Some people may call me a fool but...”

“How dare they! Who?”

“Miriam, because I didn’t realize that I love you; my father, because I told him I love you; and Connie, because I didn’t guess that you love me.”

“Oh, that’s all right, then.”

“Aren’t you going to avenge me?” he teased, his heart swelling with tenderness.

“No, Lord Westwood is entitled to his opinion and Miriam and Connie were right, my darling slowtop,” she said lovingly. He couldn’t let her insult him so he stopped her speaking the best way he knew how. When she surfaced from the kiss, she accused him, “You told me you had given up hope of Lady Sophia. Wait, no, I assumed you had been refused but all you said was that you were not going to marry her.”

“That was careless of me. As I was saying, I am not such a slowtop that I didn’t realize in time, before I proposed, that Lady Sophia was not at all the sort of wife I wanted. I admit it was a few minutes later that I realized what sort of wife I did want.”

“What sort was that?” she asked provocatively.

“I decided I simply could not live without dimples, one here--” he kissed it “--and one here.” And he kissed that one, too. “So, you see, I was thinking of my own survival, not being kind at all. But now you are much richer than I am, so it’s your turn to be kind. Fortunately I know you are the kindest-hearted person in Christendom.”

It was up to her to prove him right, so she kissed him, very kindly indeed.

Copyright © 1994 by Carola Dunn

Originally published by Zebra

Electronically published in 2006 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.