Elizabeth Mansfield (29 page)

“How did you find us?” Letty asked repeatedly. “And what are you doing here?”

Roger refused to discuss anything until he had disposed of the innkeeper and his wife, who remained at the door watching the goings-on with openmouthed interest. “I shall leave Prue to explain how and why we’re here,” he said, “while I deal with our hosts and make arrangements for dinner and bedchambers. But when I return, my girl,” he added, taking Letty’s chin in his hand and forcing her to look up at him, “you and I are going to have a long, long talk.” Letty was disconcerted by the unmistakable twinkle in his eye. It was there for no good reason that she could ascertain, unless he had exaggerated the significance of her greeting. She would have some arduous explaining to do.

As soon as the parlor door closed behind him, Letty turned to her sister and hugged her effusively. “I never
dreamed
you’d come after me,” she exclaimed in astonishment. “Whatever made you do such a foolhardy thing? And why did you persuade Lord Denham to accompany you? That was beyond anything! I should really be angry at you, you know, except that I am so glad to see you that I shan’t scold at all.”

“Scold!” Prue said contemptuously. “You are in no position to scold anyone, Letty Glendenning! Eloping in that wild way! Whatever possessed you?”

“I refuse to answer any of your questions until you answer mine. Why did you bring Lord Denham with you?”

“I didn’t bring him—he brought me,” Prue said, taking off her shawl and settling near the fire. “He was coming alone, but I begged him to let me come along.”

“But why did he wish to—? And how did he learn that I—?”

“Katie told him.”

“Katie?” Letty asked incredulously. “But …
why
?”

“She thinks Roger is the perfect man for you … and so do I.”

Letty’s expression clouded over, and she frowned at her sister in annoyance. “My thanks to you both,” she said tartly. “You know nothing whatsoever about the matter, either of you. Therefore, your opinions are worthless, and I’d be obliged if you both would refrain from expressing them.”

“And
I’d
be obliged if you’d refrain from running off with a man for whom you care nothing,” Prue retorted.

Letty gave Prue a startled glance. “What do you mean? Why do you say
that
?”

“I can tell. You’ve never even talked to me about him.”

“I may not talk about him,” Letty said, trying to convince herself as much as her sister, “but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think highly of all his admirable qualities.”’

“Well,
I
don’t think of his ’admirable qualities’ at all, and I—” She stopped, flushed, and looked down at the floor.

Letty, arrested, stared at her sister. “Prue! What are you saying?”

Prue bit her lip. “I only mean that love doesn’t have anything to do with
admirable qualities.
One can love someone without finding him so very admirable … I believe …”

Letty ran to her sister and knelt beside the chair. “Oh, Prue,” she said softly, “you don’t mean that you … you can’t mean
Brandon
!”

Prue nodded and looked at her sister with a rueful smile. “Isn’t it shocking? I know he’s stodgy and stuffy and impossibly priggish, but … Oh, Letty, it’s all midsummer moon with me!”

Letty looked up at her sister aghast. “But I had no
idea …
! Why did you never
tell
me?”

“I wanted to, Letty, truly, I
longed
to talk to you about him. But you’ve been so abstracted … so troubled … and you didn’t seem to want to talk to me about it …”

Letty was deeply shamed. She’d been so self-absorbed, she’d taken no notice of what had been
happening to her sister. She rose and turned to the fire. “I’ve been completely selfish,” she said, deeply humiliated. “I never even
noticed …
and you must have had a difficult time of it! Can you forgive me, Prue?”

Prue stood up and joined her sister at the fire. “Don’t be a goosecap,” she said, slipping an arm around her sister’s waist. “Just tell me truly if
you
care for him.”

Letty grinned. “If today was an indication of the sort of life Brandon and I would have together, we neither of us could have borne it for a week! No, my dear. I’ve been completely foolish to have imagined that the two of us could make a match.” She glanced at her sister cautiously. “But, Prue, are you sure that
you
would be happy with him?”

“You’re asking if I could bear his by-your-leaves and his quotations and his endless prosings about his old Greeks, is that it?” Prue laughed.

“Yes, dearest, I am. And his absentmindedness and his disregard for the practicalities and … Prue, to be truthful, he is so
different
from you,” Letty said with a worried frown.

Prue gave her an affectionate squeeze. “I know all that,” she said with a reassuring smile, “but he doesn’t dare prose on to
me
about Euripides and Catullus. He needs someone like me to enliven him, Letty, really he does. And I need him to … settle me down.”

Letty stared at her sister with dawning admiration. The girl was right. Prue had always been practical and down-to-earth. She would enjoy seeing to Brandon’s mundane needs—making sure that his hat was firmly on his head, his spectacles on his nose, and his money in his pocket. She would tease him into displaying the charm that lay beneath his scholarly disposition, and she would bring enchantment to his hitherto ordinary existence. And
he
would curb the excesses of her volatile nature. They would undoubtedly quarrel and rub against each other frequently, but they would never spend a day of tedium such as
she
and Brandon had endured today. And it was Prue herself, not yet eighteen, who had realized all this. She had grown up these past few weeks, right before Letty’s eyes, and Letty, to her shame, had not noticed.

“What have you done with him, Letty?” Prue asked suddenly. “I haven’t caught a glimpse of him. Why wasn’t he with you while you were holding off that dragon of a woman at the door?”

“Oh, dear, I’ve forgotten to tell you. I’m afraid he’s contracted a chill. He was quite feverish and went to bed immediately upon our arrival.”

“Then I’ll go to him at once,” Prue said and started for the door.

But Letty suggested that this would not be the time for a meeting between them. He would be groggy, ill, and bewildered. The morning would be soon enough, she reasoned, to confront him with the many surprises that he had in store. Prue, exhibiting the new maturity that had so amazed her sister, soon saw the wisdom of Letty’s suggestion and agreed to curb her impatience.

Roger had been waiting outside to permit Letty and Prue to have their tête-à-tête, but now he entered and announced that all the arrangements had been made and that supper would immediately be served. Although the tiny inn contained no bedrooms other than the two that Brandon and Letty had taken, which meant that Roger would be forced to sleep on a narrow cot in Brandon’s room and that Prue would share Letty’s bed, Roger had managed to arrange a feast sumptuous enough to be worthy of a much grander establishment. The innkeeper’s wife had evidently rekindled her fire without complaint, for she served them generously with steaming hot roast pork, a neck of mutton smothered in onions, a couple of small stuffed chickens, a currant pudding, a custard pudding, and all the tea, hot punch, and cool ale they could possibly want. These were served with such ingratiating smiles and affable manners that Letty could barely suppress her laughter at the woman’s miraculous transformation.

When the meal was done, Prue tactfully excused herself and went to bed. Letty tried to follow, but
Roger forcibly detained her. “I haven’t driven all these miles to be cheated out of my chance to give you a proper scold, my girl,” he said, taking her arm and leading her to the chair before the fire. “Why did you do such a shatterbrained thing?”

“It
was
shatterbrained, my lord. I’m most dreadfully sorry, and I can only express my gratitude to you for saving me from the consequences of my folly,” she said carefully.

“Have we returned to ‘my lord’ again? If you really wish to express your gratitude, call me by my Christian name. You managed it quite beautifully, I thought, earlier this evening,” he said with a mischievous gleam.

“As to that, my I—Roger,” she said, coloring, “I wish you would not refine on it too much. I was most sorely pressed, as you saw. It was so horrible to contemplate being forcibly ejected from this place, with Brandon feverish and the rain pouring down, that the sight of … of a friendly face was an overwhelming relief. I … may have passed the bounds a bit in my gratitude …”

Roger sighed. “Are you going to pretend that the look on your face was
gratitude
?” Discouraged, he turned away, leaned on the mantel and stared into the fire. “Letty, when will you bring yourself to speak your mind to me, honestly and openly?”

“There are some things that cannot easily be spoken between us. Yet I’ve tried to be as honest with you as I could, sir.”

“
Anything
can be spoken of between us, Letty,” he said, turning to her with a compelling look. “And now must be the time. We’ve been moving at cross-purposes for too long. Both of us have been guilty of some dishonesty and evasion, and the problems between us have not been resolved. Perhaps it is time to try some frankness.”

“Very well, you may be right. Where would you like to begin, sir?”

“Shall we begin with Brandon? Do you want to marry him?”

Letty lowered her eyes. “No,” she said in a small voice. “I’ve behaved disgracefully in that respect. I made him lie to you about our betrothal. And this stupid elopement is all my doing. He never cared for me, except as a friend. In fact—” She looked up at him with a wry smile. “In fact, I shan’t be surprised to learn that he has had a tendre for Prue all this time.”

“I’m sure he does. I’m glad you’ve realized it. I didn’t relish the idea of convincing you of the possibility.”

“But, how did
you
realize it?” Letty asked in surprise.

“I watched and listened. I had to learn if you truly cared for him, you see. But when it comes to
you,
my wishes get in the way of my eyes. I was never certain. Tell me, my dear,
do
you care for him?”

Letty shook her head wordlessly.

“And I was right,” Roger went on, “in assuming that the betrothal was concocted to keep
me
at arm’s length?”

“Yes,” Letty admitted shamefacedly.

“Don’t look so miserable, my love,” Roger said with an ironic smile. “The fact that you needed to trick me is more my fault than yours.”

“Wh … What do you mean?” Letty asked falteringly. She knew that they now approached the subject that would be most painful for her to discuss. She didn’t want to discuss it. She wanted, more than anything, to end this interview and go to bed. But she realized that there was no other way for her to make Roger understand that she could never marry him but to face the real reason for her refusal. So she clenched her hands in her lap and prepared herself for the ordeal to come.

“It is now
my
turn for honesty,” he began. “I know the subject is a difficult one for a young lady as delicately reared and as sensitive as you, but you
must
let me explain my behavior.” He turned back to
the fire and spoke with some difficulty. “If, when I’ve finished, you still find the thought of marriage to me too … repellent, I shall not trouble you again.”

For a moment he fell silent. She found that she was holding her breath. He didn’t turn but spoke quietly into the fire, feeling that he could not face the look of revulsion he feared he might see in her eyes. “I didn’t know you were aware that I had a mistress when I first asked you to marry me. I had no recollection of that night in Vauxhall, when you first learned of it. But you must believe that the liaison would not have continued once I had married. Kitty … Mrs. Brownell has always understood that my relationship with her would end when I married.” He took a deep breath. “There is something even more important that I beg you will believe. I didn’t bring her to Bath. Since my first evening here, I haven’t given her a single thought. She arrived the day of the fireworks display and surprised me as much as she did you. And I didn’t come to you again until I had severed all ties between us. The relationship never signified anything very important in my life, and its ending gave me great relief. It’s not a thing I’m proud of, Letty, but I don’t believe it means that I can never be a loyal, honest, and faithful husband.”

“Roger,” Letty whispered shakily. “I … thank you for telling me, but …”

“There’s something else,” Roger said, turning and kneeling before her chair, “I must say
something
about my monstrous treatment of you at Vauxhall—”

Letty held up a restraining hand. “Roger, no—”

“I must. I know how the experience must have disturbed you. I’ve not been able to forgive myself since the moment I realized that it was you who—”

“Please don’t go on. This isn’t necessary, I promise you. It was a mistake. I don’t blame you at all,” she said earnestly.

He grasped her hands and looked at her closely. “But it
was
the barrier that kept you from accepting me, was it not? Tell me the truth, Letty.”

She stared at him and then nodded slowly.

He winced. “Oh, my darling,” he groaned, “what can I do? I cannot undo what I did that night. But listen to me, Letty, please! I promise you that I will never, never use you so again.” He lowered his head until it rested on their clasped hands. “If we were wed,” he said in a low voice, “I would treat you with the utmost gentleness. I need not be the kind of man whom you met that night in the gardens. I will be as tender and restrained as a bride could desire.”

There was no answer. He looked up at her questioningly. She was staring at him with an enigmatic, wide-eyed expression he could not fathom, as if she were seeing him—or herself—for the first time. “No, Roger, no,” she said in a voice that trembled in pain and surprise. “You don’t understand. I’m not the girl you think me. I can’t be the kind of wife you want. Please let me go. There’s no use in talking any more—I don’t think I could ever explain it to you. I’m not sure I can explain it to myself. But I can’t marry you.”