Marjorie Farrel (19 page)

“Perhaps you are right, Francis, but I am convinced, rightly or wrongly—and perhaps it is self-pity—that it is unfair to ask a woman to take on such a burden unless there is more to offer in return. I suppose you are wondering what all this has to do with Miss Ware? I asked her to marry me and she refused.”

Francis was less surprised than he might have been. He had, upon a few occasions, felt something between the duke and his reader. But it was not done, for someone of Simon’s rank, to consider a woman in his employ, no matter how gently bred, as a wife.

“I am not quite sure what to say, your grace. I am surprised, of course, since Miss Ware is clearly not someone you would have previously considered choosing for your duchess.”

“You are right, Francis. Despite my radical politics, I am more bound by family feeling than I thought I was. But this is not before Waterloo, it is after. I am different, and it seemed as if Miss Ware and I were good companions and had something to offer each other. It seemed a fair bargain: wealth and position in exchange for a blind husband.”

“And Miss Ware’s opinion on the question?”

“Gave me another show of her independent mind, Francis. Accused me of insulting her, of insulting both of us. She claims that until I again believe myself an attractive man, my feelings for a woman cannot be trusted. That I was acting out of some sort of pride.”

Francis wished Miss Ware had accepted the duke’s proposal. He suddenly realized that of all women, Judith Ware, with her straightforwardness and sense of integrity, was precisely what Simon needed in a wife. Rank be damned, thought Francis, surprising himself. She loves him. No woman who didn’t would have turned down such an offer. And he may even love her, but he most certainly does not know it.

* * * *

Simon might not have been aware of the depth of his feelings for Judith, but over the next few weeks he certainly felt her absence. Now that he was truly preparing himself for his return to politics, he had to have another reader. Another advertisement was placed, and this time several male candidates presented themselves. Mr. Whithedd, remembering his unconventional hiring of Miss Ware, and having no other information about her departure other than she was unable to continue her post, surveyed the applicants and, for no reason known to himself, chose the most nondescript of them: a Mr. Wiggins, who had previously been employed in a small firm that had closed on the death of its founder and owner.

Mr. Wiggins was in his early fifties and wore a muffler that seemed to take hours to unwind when he arrived. He smelled musty to Simon, as though he had been sitting on a shelf for the last thirty years—which, considering the nature of a clerk’s job, he had. His reading was perfectly satisfactory, if a bit colorless. He showed no initiative, nor did he venture any opinions of his own, but followed Simon’s wishes to the letter. Simon had to admit that the amount of reading they did together was more than he and Judith would get through, since she was wont to stop and make comments on the speeches they were reading. Whether serious or humorous, Simon always responded, and they would find themselves in many a discussion that drew them away from the task in front of them. Not that it was a waste of time, thought Simon one morning as he listened to Mr. Wiggins reading in his uninflected, even tone. Our arguments helped refine my thinking, and while we most often agreed on ends, her views came from a different vantage point and gave me another way of looking at an issue.

The days on which Judith had read had had a different feel to them. Simon had not realized it, but on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, he awoke with a sense of anticipation. While Mr. Wiggins was certainly satisfactory, he certainly aroused no feelings of enthusiasm in the duke. To Simon, who depended upon smell and voice and nuances in tone to get a sense of a person, Mr. Wiggins had all the personality of a ledger.

Mr. Wiggins had become an expert at invisibility as a clerk, and the only thing that had given him the courage to apply for a position in a nobleman’s household was depression. He and his wife had no children to help support them, and this salary was all that stood between them and the poorhouse. Like Judith, he had pictured himself reading for an older man, blinded by age, and was surprised to find his employer so young. Since his picture of young noblemen was greatly colored by the caricatures of the day, he had not expected to like the duke. But he was very moved, as he told his wife, by the young man’s acceptance of his handicap.

“He has not let it embitter him, my dear, and far from being proud, he is everything that is gracious. He can find his way about the house, and even rides. He is quite a radical. I enjoy reading for him, and he has even set me to taking notes on articles and speeches. If only we had more like him, who took their responsibilities seriously ...”

As always, it was impossible for anyone in regular contact with Simon not to feel affection for him. So Mr. Wiggins continued arriving and leaving punctually, unwinding and winding his long muffler, gradually feeling comfortable enough to accept a cup of tea, and later regaling his wife with the sights and sounds of Mayfair. After a few weeks, Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins began to feel protective toward Simon. His blindness made him human and less remote, and the fact that he was without close family aroused their dormant parental feelings.

Simon, of course, would have been embarrassed, particularly since he had no feeling for Mr. Wiggins at all, except a recurring disappointment that he was not Miss Ware.

In the afternoons, Simon met with Francis on estate business and then either went riding or driving with Robin. It was getting colder, and fewer people were out in the park, because of the weather and because the ton was preparing to return to the country for the holidays. Simon did not mind. He found it a strain to be attentive to every sound and be careful to acknowledge people. While he did it well, to recognize mere acquaintances by voice wore him out, and yet it would not do to slight anyone.

But since the riding itself was exhilarating and freeing, he continued to go out every day. In the evenings, however, he was selective. So far he had been able to avoid social gatherings larger than dinners and musical evenings. Since he could, in truth, do nothing but talk, and since he needed an escort to dinner, he felt perfectly justified in avoiding the balls and routs he was invited to. This week, however, he was going to attend his first ball. He was not looking forward to it because, as he told Robin, “I will be relegated to sitting out dances with chaperones, wallflowers, or even worse, retired generals who will want to refight the Peninsular campaign with me. But I am planning my speech for the spring, and I need more contact with the politically influential. But for God’s sake, don’t let go of me, Robin.”

Simon was dressed for the evening as simply as fashion dictated, in black knee breeches, black coat, and only a sapphire winking from his cravat. He had regained all of his lost weight, and the daily riding had ensured that it was regained in muscle, not fat. His sandy hair fell quite naturally in a Brutus. The only other jewelry he wore was his signet ring. While he was not as classically handsome as Robin, whose blondness was the ideal, he looked quite attractive. He had no look of a blind person about him. He worked hard at not staring blankly, and was now moving fairly confidently, even in unfamiliar surroundings, with the arm of a friend or servant, and occasionally with his walking stick.

When they reached the door, however, after a long wait in the crush of carriages, Simon, listening to the hustle and bustle around him, was almost ready to return home and never attempt this again. He knew what it would be like: a crowd of people on the stairs, and in the ballroom the noises of the orchestra and dancers and conversations. All would combine to disorient him, since he depended upon his ears so much. If Robin was jostled aside, he was lost, and the fear of possible humiliation made him dig his fingers into his friend’s arm as they waited on the crowded stairs.

Robin, of course, had no intention of losing Simon. “Don’t worry,” he joked under his breath, “I’m holding on to you so neither of us gets lost.” Trying to relax the duke, he continued in his vein, making outrageous comments on the more ridiculously affected members of the ton, and finally felt Simon’s grip on his arm relax as they passed through the receiving line and into the ballroom.

The ballroom itself presented another problem. Robin had no intention of leaving Simon with either the dowagers or the elderly ex-military. He sought for and found a group of their friends who were in the far corner, debating politics and arguing over who was the most pushing mama of the Season. It was generally agreed that Lady Hyde, who had four daughters to marry off, none of them particularly attractive and one at least decidedly plain, was, as Archie Clare put it, “a royal pain in the arse.”

Simon realized he had something to be thankful for, and jokingly said, “Well, at least I am spared all that. No mother is going to be pushing her daughter in my direction.”

His friends laughed and then Viscount Devenham said, “No, no, Simon, I’ll lay odds that Lady Hyde approaches you this evening with her third daughter, Lady Alice. She would calculate your blindness as an advantage, because you will not be able to see how plain her daughter is.”

They all laughed, including Simon, and began to make bets with one another. Underneath his enjoyment of the teasing, which meant his friends were at last at ease with him, was a discomfort with their underlying disregard for the reality of those who did not live up to fashionable standards. He found himself looking at them all through Judith Ware’s eyes. Critical as he had always been of his society, he could not help but have absorbed some of its basic attitudes, one of them being that the main reason for marriage was an exchange of properties and titles, not love. If a husband and a wife liked each other, that was an unexpected bonus, but love was a luxury the rich could not afford.

Now that Simon was no longer a good “catch,” now that his worth, which had been taken for granted, would be weighed against his blindness, his eyes were more open to what had always been there, unseen because so familiar. He had been lucky enough to have parents whose marriage included respect and love. But he had visited friends whose parents rarely saw each other. Coming from homes like that, it was no wonder that the young men he knew were so cynical; and living in a society where survival for a woman meant connection with some man, no wonder young girls and their mothers pushed to find the best match they could. Simon’s position was now as vulnerable as any plain woman’s or son of an impoverished peer.

He was brought back from his musings as he realized the orchestra was tuning up for a country dance, and several of his friends were muttering about doing the pretty and leaving to partner the most attractive miss they could find. Simon touched Robin on the arm and said, “Please don’t let me hold you back from enjoying yourself.”

“I am going to skip this one,” answered Robin. “Let me get us a glass of punch.”

Simon stood there, feeling his old fear of being exposed flood back. He was only a part of the scenery, but felt his anxiety mounting as he waited for Robin to return. I cannot depend upon him like this, he thought, I must get used to being alone. He heard a rustling noise and smelled a combination of heavy perfume and acrid body odor as he felt someone approach.

“Good evening, your grace,” said an older woman’s voice. “I saw you standing alone here, and said to my Alice—make your curtsy, Alice—that you should not have been left so.”

The woman was talking loudly at Simon, as some people tended to do, as though he were also deaf or lacking in wit, and he stepped back to get away from the voice and almost tripped on a chair behind him. Lady Hyde, for that was of course who it was, immediately grabbed his arm and clucked solicitously.

“You see, you do need someone with you,” she said stridently, and pushed her daughter forward. Poor Alice, who was not even eighteen, and the despair of her mother and sisters for her lack of attraction, was red with embarrassment. She was used to her mother’s insensitivity, but this rudeness and presumption was the outside of enough. She was so sorry for Simon that she was able to summon up the courage to face down her mother.

“I am certain the duke is very capable of handling himself, Mama,” she said in a low voice. “We did not mean to disturb you, your grace,” she said swiftly, rather aghast at her own temerity. “I am sure you were just waiting for Major Stanley to return.”

So her mother had been waiting to pounce once he was alone, thought Simon. Well, Dev would win his bet. He laughed to himself. He could not be angry with Alice, but her mother was making him feel slightly ill, what with her loud voice, which made it difficult for Simon to listen for Robin’s return, and her offensive smell. He turned away from her in a direct cut, toward her daughter, and said, “Yes, Robin has gone for a glass of punch. Perhaps you would be so kind as to give me your arm and we will go in search of him?” Anything, thought Simon, to get away from her mother.

Alice was surprised the duke would ask for her help, but then realized what he was about. It would get them both away from her mother in a way that would leave the older woman feeling successful in her maneuvering and not likely to be harsh to her daughter, later.

“I am not sure how to go on, but I would be happy to take you,” said Alice.

“Just let me rest my hand on your elbow, and steer me away from walls and tables, my dear, and we will do fine.”

Alice offered her arm to Simon and walked slowly at first and then more naturally as she realized the duke was following her easily. She was trembling, never having been so close to a man before, but Simon was chattering reassuringly and asking her for observations on the ball. She was soon more relaxed and, by the time they reached the refreshment table, had quite forgotten that she, the despair of her mother, was talking quite naturally to a sophisticated older man.

Robin saw them come in and almost laughed aloud to see Simon with the plainest Hyde girl. He walked over quickly, intending to rescue his friend, but then realized that the two of them were chatting away quite comfortably. So when he handed Simon the glass of punch, instead of dismissing Alice, he offered to get a glass for her.