Mary Balogh (48 page)

“You have been nowhere else but England except for Spain,” he said. “There are lovelier climes and far more spectacular surroundings, Mary.”

“But I don’t think any could bring me greater happiness than England,” she said.

“That is a typically insular attitude,” he said, smiling at her. “I shall persuade you to change it. I plan to take you to every corner of Europe on our wedding journey. I shall keep you away from these shores for a whole year at least, Mary. Perhaps two or even three. Paris, Vienna, Rome, Venice—you shall see them all, and more.”

“Mm,” she said with a sigh. “How wonderful it will be. I will have to pinch myself to believe that it is all real.”

“Oh, it is real,” he said. “I promise you.”

“But you did exaggerate.” She laughed. “A whole year, Simon? You could not enjoy being away from home so long, surely. And away from your sons?”

“They are at school,” he said. “And they have relatives with whom to spend the holidays. They are beyond the age of having to be coddled. I never did encourage them to be dependent on me.”

She pulled a face. “But you must be a little dependent on them,” she said. “Your own sons, Simon. You do not have to feel obliged to take me on an elaborate wedding trip, you know. Just to be with you and at your home will be happiness enough.”

He smiled at her. “Ah, but I intend to make your happiness the main goal of my life,” he said. “We will travel, Mary, and when we return, we will always be where it is most fashionable to be. There will always be something to amuse you.”

“I am thirty years old, Simon,” she said. “Did you know that? I am sure you must have. I make no effort to try to hide my age.” She flushed. “I cannot delay too long if I am to give you a family.”

“I have a family,” he said. “You do not have to worry about that tedious duty, Mary. I have no intention of burdening you with children.”

“Burdening?” she said. “Oh, no, Simon. It would be no burden. It would be a joy.”

They did not argue the matter. They were riding in company with other people, and soon it became necessary to converse with others. Besides, it was very early in their betrothal. Such matters could be discussed with more seriousness later. There would be time enough to convince him that domestic joy for her meant a country home and a husband and family of her own.

Nevertheless, a little of the joy had gone out of the morning. What if their goals for happiness should really prove to be incompatible? But she pushed the thought from her mind.

H
IS AUNT WAS
trying to throw them together. She was matchmaking. He had suspected it right from the day of the garden party, when she had unexpectedly invited them to stay to dinner. She liked Mary and for some strange reason had conceived the notion that she would make him a good wife.

He had suspected even more strongly when he had received his invitation to this week at Rundle Park and his aunt had mentioned specifically that she had also invited Mary and Goodrich. He had been even more sure of it after he had arrived and talked with her.

If she was hoping to match the two of them, of course, there were those who would have thought it strange that she would also invite Goodrich, since in her own words he and Mary had become an item. But that was just the way his aunt worked. She confronted problems head-on. By inviting the three of them into the country, she
hoped that he would oust Goodrich from Mary’s affections and that she would see that he was the better man.

Ha! The better man.

What his aunt had done was force him into becoming a blackguard. Or into remaining a blackguard. He did not have much honor or reputation left to lose, if any.

He tried. After that disaster of an opening tea, he did try to keep his distance from her. He even looked over the slim pickings of unattached females at his aunt’s party and tried determinedly to show a gentlemanly interest in Miss Wiggins, though the girl was almost young enough to be his daughter and seemed never to have heard the word “conversation.” And he denied himself the pleasure of a morning ride merely because Mary was to be one of the party.

But in the afternoon he could no longer avoid being in company with her. His aunt had filled up two carriages with guests interested in the ancient Norman church and churchyard in the village. She had craftily offered Goodrich the seat next to her before the man realized that only those who could fit into the two carriages were to go. Mary was not among them.

For those guests who remained, Lady Eleanor suggested a walk across the pasture and through the trees past several follies to the lake. She was sly, Lord Edmond thought. Not by the merest hint had she suggested that both he and Mary join the walkers. Certainly there was no evidence that she had even dreamed that they walk together. But she had set the scene nicely, he had to admit that. He caught Goodrich’s eye as the viscount escorted his aunt out to the waiting carriages, and inclined his head. He noted with the greatest satisfaction the tightening of Goodrich’s jaw.

And the rest was inevitable. He was one of the first of the walkers to arrive downstairs, and Mary was the first unattached lady to put in an appearance. Perhaps he
might have hung back and waited to offer his arm to Miss Wiggins or to the widowed Lady Cathcart, who had been married to his uncle’s cousin. But Mary made the mistake of catching his eye and raising her chin stubbornly. His very self-respect set him to sauntering across the hall to her side.

“Mary?” he said. “You are walking and have reserved no one’s arm on which to lean? Allow me to offer mine.” Which he proceeded to do with a courtly bow.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice chilly. “But I am not sure I will need anyone’s arm.”

He raised one eyebrow and looked at her.

“Very well,” she said, one foot beating a light tattoo on the tiles. “Thank you, my lord.”

Everyone else came downstairs in a large and noisy body.

“Doris and I will lead the way,” Peter Shelbourne said. “This was the route of many a childhood romp. Remember, Andrew? Edmond? I could do it with my eyes closed.”

“A rather pointless though impressive offer,” Lord Edmond said. “Go ahead, then, Peter. Lady Mornington and I will bring up the rear so that we can rescue any stragglers who happen to get lost.”

“Nicely done,” Mary said as they descended the horseshoe steps at the back of the group. “I suppose you intend to lag so far behind that you will have me all to yourself.”

“It is a fine idea,” he said, “though it had not occurred to me until you mentioned it.”

“And I suppose you arranged it that Simon go on the drive,” she said, “so that I would be unprotected.”

“Far from it,” he said. “My knees are still knocking from a certain nocturnal visit I was paid last night.”

She looked at him in inquiry.

“It seems I am to keep my eyes and my hands and
every other part of my body off you,” he said, “since you are now someone else’s possession.”

Her jaw tightened. He wondered at whom her anger was directed.

“I gather that my jaw and my nose and several other parts of my anatomy are at risk if I choose to be defiant,” he said. “I believe that even a bullet through the heart or brain would not be considered excessive punishment.”

“Well,” she said, “at least now you know.”

“I do indeed,” he said. “Mary, are you really going to marry him?”

“I am,” she said. “I have been a widow long enough. I want the security and contentment of marriage.”

“Ah,” he said. “And I thought that it was a new lover you were in search of. No wonder you rejected my suit, Mary. I should have offered you marriage.”

“How ridiculous!” She looked at him scornfully. “As if I would have married you. And as if you would have offered marriage. You would be quite incapable of the type of commitment that marriage calls for. Fidelity, for example.”

“Do you think so?” he said. “Though perhaps you are right. I had not the smallest intention of being faithful to Dorothea had I married her. And she was too civilized to have expected it. She would have preferred me to reserve all amorous activities apart from the begetting of an heir for a mistress, I suspect. On the other hand, I did intend to be faithful to Lady Wren. She was the most exquisite creature I have ever seen. Yourself included.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I have never had any illusions about my own beauty.”

“I could have been faithful to you, though,” he said, his eyes roaming her face. “I don’t believe I would have ever wished to stray from you, Mary.”

“Nonsense!” she said. “We have nothing whatsoever in common.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “There was something.”

She looked about her. “Why are we walking around the formal gardens instead of through them like everyone else?” she asked.

“A question unworthy of you, Mary,” he said, though he had not noticed until that moment that they were not following the others, “when the answer is so obvious. So that we may fall farther behind, of course.”

“If you think to seduce me,” she said, tight-lipped, “you have a fight on your hands, my lord.”

“A tempting thought,” he said. “But let us be civil. Talk to me, Mary. Tell me how you like this house and what you have seen of the park.”

She relaxed somewhat as they rounded the end of the formal gardens and proceeded after the others in the direction of the stile leading to the path across the pasture.

“Oh, I like it very well,” she said. “I cannot imagine why anyone with a country home can bear to leave it in order to live in town.”

“The pursuit of pleasure,” he said, “and company. The escape from self. One does not have to come face-to-face with oneself so often amid the clamor of town entertainments.”

“Is that why you live almost all the time in town?” she asked.

“As usual, Mary,” he said, “you know unerringly how to wound. You think I find facing myself unpleasant?”

“Do you?” she asked.

He lifted her hand away from his arm so that he could climb over the stile and turn to help her over. He could not resist lifting her down and lowering her close to his own body. She flushed, but she smoothed out her dress calmly enough and took his offered arm again.

“Why should I?” he asked. “I have almost everything
a man could ask for in life. I have wealth and property and position. I have had a great deal of pleasure in my life.”

“And peace of mind?” she said. “And self-respect? And a place to call home, and loving people to fill it?”

“Ah, you would be enough for that, Mary,” he said.

“No.” She looked up at him and shook her head. “Absolutely not. For whenever I am with you, my lord, I am doing what you always object to. I am wounding you, if it is possible for you still to feel wounded. I am your conscience. You are a fool if you think you could ever be happy with me.”

He sighed. “My small attempt to keep the conversation light and general has failed, has it not?” he said. “We are back to the wrangling. Tell me, why exactly are you marrying Goodrich? Is it just that you think you are of an age when you ought? Is it just for security and contentment? They are very dull words. Is there no love, no fire, no magic?”

“My reasons are my own concern,” she said, her voice frosty.

“By which words I understand that there are none of those elements in your relationship,” he said. “You are not the sort of woman who can live permanently without any of the three, Mary.”

“Oh,” she said crossly, “how can you pretend to know anything about me? You know nothing beyond the fact that I am terrified of thunderstorms and behave very irrationally when one is happening.”

“I know you, Mary,” he said. “I know you very well, I believe.”

She clucked her tongue. “Everyone else is across the pasture and in the woods already,” she said. “I think it ungentlemanly of you to keep me so far behind, my lord.”

“You will insist,” he said, “on telling me I am no gentleman
on the one hand and expecting me to behave like one on the other. Is he going to take you to live in the country? You will like that, at least.”

“He wants to take me traveling,” she said. “He wants us to spend a year and perhaps longer traveling about Europe after our wedding. He wants to make my happiness the focus of his life, he says.”

“Then you should be ecstatic,” he said. “Why are you not?”

She was looking ahead to the ancient trees that made up the woods surrounding the lake. “I want a home,” she said. “I did nothing but travel during my first marriage. We never had a home at all except for a tent and sometimes some rooms for a billet. And though I have my home in London now, it can sometimes be lonely.”

“So the traveling holds no lure for you,” he said. “If your happiness is indeed his main concern, Mary, then all you will have to do is tell him so.”

“But he seems so set on it,” she said. “And so set on making pleasure the object of our life together. I want a family, but he says he will not burden me with children.”

“He is set on bringing himself pleasure,” he said quietly, “and on not burdening himself, Mary.”

Her eyes flew to his suddenly and she flushed rosily. “Oh,” she said, “how did you do it? How? What on earth could have possessed me to confide such things to you? To you of all people?”

“Sometimes a sympathetic ear can loose even the most tightly knotted tongue,” he said.

“Sympathetic!” She looked at him in distaste. “What use will you make of these confessions, I wonder. You will tell everyone, I suppose. You will make me the laughingstock. And you will anger Simon.”

He swung her around to face him and grasped her by both arms. “When have I ever made public anything I know about you?” he asked. “At least absolve me of
that, Mary. And is it so shameful anyway to admit that you want a home and family with the man you are planning to marry?”

She laughed bitterly. “At least,” she said, “you can be thankful that I did not somehow maneuver you into offering for me. Can you imagine a worse hell than living with a woman with such lowly ambitions?”

“I have a country home I might have offered you,” he said. “If it is solitude and domesticity you crave, Mary, you would like it. I have neglected it for years. It needs redecorating and refurnishing from stem to stern. I have just been there for a few weeks. It needs a woman’s touch. But it is cozy. Not as large as Rundle Park or Goodrich’s estate, I will wager. It was the smallest of my father’s properties—a suitable one to which to banish me. I might have offered it to you.”