Only a Promise (27 page)

“Graham,” Chloe said. “He is my brother, ma’am.”

“Ah,” Lady Harding said. “He was a likable boy. Our son was very fortunate in all his friends. He enjoyed his school years. It is a comfort to remember that. What has become of your brother?”

And, incredibly, for the next half hour they all drank tea and nibbled on cakes and conversed on a variety of subjects. Viscount Harding told them about his twin brother with whom he had always enjoyed an extraordinarily close relationship. The brother had married late and had a growing family of three boys and two girls. It was very clear to Ralph that both Harding and his wife doted upon their nieces and nephews and saw them frequently. The eldest boy was, of course, Harding’s heir after the boy’s own father. The nephews and nieces would never replace the Hardings’ own son, of course, but it was clear that they
were
a consolation.

Lady Harding told Chloe that Miss Courtney, the
young sister of Ralph’s friend Max, had just married a clergyman from the north of England.

“We were at the wedding,” she said, “and a very pretty one it was too. The bride glowed. It was understandable, I must say. Her husband is a well-set-up young gentleman and more handsome than any clergyman has a right to be. It was very clearly a love match—the very best sort, would you not agree, Chloe?”

“I would, ma’am,” Chloe said and smiled.

“You must not be strangers,” Harding said when Ralph got to his feet a short while later. “Now that we have seen one another again and got over the awkwardness of a long silence, we must keep in touch.”

“We will send you an invitation to our ball at Stockwood House,” Chloe said. “Please come. Graham will be there. He will be delighted to see you.”

Five minutes later they were walking home, Chloe’s arm drawn through Ralph’s. He had dismissed the carriage when she had assured him she would enjoy some fresh air. They walked in silence for several minutes.

“I like them,” Chloe said eventually.

“What?” He paused to toss a coin to a young crossing sweeper who had cleared some horse droppings from their path. “Oh. Yes. They are very pleasant. They always were.”

“I hope they come to the ball,” she said.

“Mmm.”

They did not speak again until they reached the house. He could not seem to unfreeze his brain.

“Chloe,” he said when her foot was on the bottom stair.

She turned to look back at him.

“Thank you,” he said, “for changing your plans and coming with me.”

She smiled. “It was my pleasure.”

“I could not have done it without you,” he said.

She smiled again and continued on her way.

Ralph let himself into the library and shut the door behind him. He had something to think about, though he could not at the moment imagine what it was exactly. But whatever it was, it was something he needed to do in private.

*   *   *

Ralph had not gone out. The butler reported that he had shut himself in the library upon his return with Her Grace and had not come out again—or rung for any service. He had not gone up to his room to change for dinner. Burroughs reported that he had waited with His Grace’s shaving water and evening clothes, but he had waited in vain.

Ralph did not come to the dining room for dinner, and Chloe decided not to have him summoned. She ate alone and then sent off a short note to Nora explaining that they would not be going to a private concert at which they had arranged to meet Nora and Lord Keilly. She spent the rest of the evening alone in the drawing room. She tried reading but gave up the attempt when she realized she had turned perhaps three pages in half an hour but had no idea what she had read. She worked doggedly but without enjoyment at her embroidery.

And she wondered for surely the dozenth time if this afternoon’s visit had made any difference at all to Ralph. Was his sense of guilt so deep-seated that he would never be able to let it go? Was he willing to accept
forgiveness even though it would seem none was necessary? Would he be willing now to live again? And if so, what about her? Where would she fit in his life? Would he be forever sorry he had married her? And if he was
not
willing to be forgiven, or, more to the point, to forgive himself, what then? Could she go on like this? But she did not have much choice, did she?

She put away her embroidery eventually and got to her feet though it was early to go to bed. What else was there to do? She was feeling horribly depressed though she ought not to be. This afternoon’s visit had really gone very well indeed. And surely it had gone a long way toward setting Ralph free.

She paused when her foot was on the bottom stair leading up to her bedchamber and looked toward the stairs going down. Was he
still
there? Or had he gone out some time during the evening without her hearing him? She hesitated for several moments longer and then took the stairs down. The footman on duty in the hall scurried ahead of her to the library and opened the door. He closed it behind her after she had stepped inside.

A branch of candles had been lit. There was no fire burning, but it was not a cold night. He was slumped in a chair beside the fireplace. He had removed his neckcloth and opened the neck of his shirt. But he was still in his coat and waistcoat and pantaloons and Hessian boots from this afternoon. His hair was disheveled as though he had run his fingers through it a time or two. A half-empty glass stood on the table beside him, though he did not look drunk. A glance toward the sideboard assured Chloe that all but one of the decanters there were still full, and even that one was not depleted by more than a glass or two.

He looked across the room at her.

“Where do memories live?” he asked. “Have you ever thought about it, Chloe? Suddenly we remember things that happened years ago, things we have not thought about since, yet they are as vivid as the events were when they were happening. Where have they been in the meanwhile? You would think we would need heads the size of a continent just to store them all.”

He did not
sound
drunk.

“What have you been remembering?” she asked him.

“Mostly school days,” he said. “People tell boys, and maybe girls too, that those are the best days of their lives, but
as
boys we scoff at them and hurl ourselves headlong at adulthood. I hate to perpetuate a cliché, but they
were
the best days.”

She walked toward him. There was no stool beside his chair. The chair on the other side of the hearth seemed too far away. She lowered herself to her knees before and to one side of him, set a hand on his knee and rubbed it slightly before setting her cheek there instead, her face turned away. His hand came to rest on her head, and his fingers played gently through her curls.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Ten o’ clock.”

“Ten?” He sounded surprised. “I missed dinner, did I? Were we not supposed to go somewhere with Nora and Keilly this evening?”

“I sent our excuses,” she told him.

“I am sorry,” he said. “Was it something you were particularly looking forward to? And you gave up your afternoon visit for me too.”

“It was no great sacrifice,” she told him.

“I have been remembering every scrape and antic I got up to with those three,” he said, “and every debate and quarrel. Every laugh we had. Every holiday we enjoyed together. And those early days in the Peninsula. There were not many of them. They were cut down far too soon. The reality of war was shocking, you know, to four boys fresh out of school, with only idealism and high spirits and energy to buoy us. But there were good times. There was laughter. We were laughing over something at breakfast that morning even though we knew what was coming, and I suppose the laughter was tinged with fear. I wish I could remember what had amused us, though I suppose it was something quite trivial. And then, just an hour or so later, I watched them die.”

His hand smoothed lightly over her hair and fell still. Chloe gazed into the unlit coals. And then she heard a slight sound. Muffled laughter? Another memory? It sounded less like laughter the next time, though. She heard him swallow.

She raised her head and scrambled to her feet, and both his hands went up to cover his face.

“The devil!” he said. “Go away, Chloe. Get out of here.”

She turned and sat on his lap instead. She burrowed her head against him and slipped her arms as best she could about his waist. And she held him while sobs wracked him until he could no longer hold them in but wept and wept for three dead friends and the end of youth.

She held him for long minutes after he had finished and found a handkerchief and blown his nose and presumably dried his eyes.

“I never wept for them,” he said at last. “I never felt I had the right.”

“Until now,” she said.

“Is it possible,” he asked, “that they really do not blame me? That they never have?”

“I think,” she said, “that they want to believe, quite correctly, that their son acted on the strength of his own convictions, that he insisted upon going because it was what
he
wanted to do. I think the other parents believe the same thing about their sons.”

“It was a strange sort of vanity, then,” he said, “to believe that I had so much influence over them?”

Chloe hesitated.

“Yes,” she said. “I think if you search your memories, Ralph, it is quite possible you will remember that the idea came from you but that the decision was individually made by four friends.”

They lapsed into silence. One of his hands came to the back of her head again, and she felt him lower his head to kiss her.

“I do not suppose,” he said, “you will ever be an obedient wife, will you?”

“It is not unmanly to weep,” she told him.

“The devil it is not.” He nudged her away from his chest and gazed into her face. His own was a bit blotchy. His scar was more pronounced than usual.”

“I hope you do not mind too much that I stayed,” she said. “Sometimes we need company while we weep, especially when we are mourning a loss.”

“They have been dead for more than seven years,” he said.

“No,” she said. “For you they have just died.”

“What did I do to deserve you?” he asked her.

“Oh. Nothing.” She sat up abruptly and got to her feet. “
I
asked
you,
if you will remember. It was very brazen of me.” She brushed her hands over nonexistent creases in her skirt.

“I am very glad you did,” he said.

She looked down a little uncertainly at him. He was looking more disheveled than ever, quite rumpled, in fact. And almost irresistibly gorgeous.

“Are
you
glad?” he asked her.

“Of course I am,” she said. “I did not want to go through life a spinster.”

“And that is all this is?” He was half smiling at her. “A convenient marriage?”

She did not know how to reply.

“You
tell
me,”
she said.

He got to his feet, took her right hand in his, and drew it through his arm.

“I think we had better go to bed,” he said, “and make love. We still have an heir to create, remember? Or perhaps a daughter first. I would like a daughter. Do you think she would have your hair? Let’s go create. And have some pleasure too. It
is
enjoyable, is it not?”

He turned his head and raised his eyebrows when she did not reply.

“Yes,” she said, “it is.”

His hand was on the doorknob. Before he turned it, he lowered his head and kissed her briefly and openmouthed.

R
alph could remember only one occasion when the ballroom at Stockwood House had been used as such. He must have been somewhere between the ages of eight and ten. It had been his grandparents’ ball, though it was his mother and father who had acted as hosts through most of the evening. Ralph and his sisters had watched the revelries from an upper gallery for half an hour or so under the supervision of a nurse, but while the girls had been enraptured by absolutely everything and everybody and could not
wait
until they were old enough to attend such a ball themselves, he had watched the men bow and scrape to the ladies and mince gracefully about the dance floor like idiots and wondered in horror if
he
would ever be expected to behave in such an asinine way.

He smiled at the memory now as he looked about the ballroom. The floor gleamed with fresh polish. The three chandeliers still rested on it, but soon the candles would be lit and they would be hoisted up close to the ceiling, which was ornately coved and gilded and painted with angels and cherubs and harps and trumpets floating in a
blue sky among fluffy, pinkish clouds in a scene that came from no classical myth or Bible story that Ralph had ever encountered. The wall mirrors had been polished until not a speck of dust or a single fingerprint remained. Vines had been twined about the pillars down the length of the room. Banks of flowers and greenery surrounded them and filled the air with their mingled scents. Several instruments were propped on the orchestra dais.

Through the wide double doorway at the far end of the room, Ralph could see long tables covered with white linen cloths that would soon be piled with platters of fruit and dainties and drinks to refresh the guests before supper.

His mother had come and fussed. So had Nora. Great-Aunt Mary had come and made free with her lorgnette and advice. Grandmama had asked a thousand anxious questions. Ralph had made it clear to all of them that he and Chloe needed no assistance, that they had organized the ball themselves and did not anticipate any major catastrophe—or any minor one for that matter.

It was a bit unfair to claim all the credit, of course, since Arthur Lloyd had done a great deal of the planning and most of the work had been undertaken by the housekeeper and the cook and all the household staff.

When his mother had come to offer her services, Chloe had been from home and Ralph had been about to go out. She had sat down in the drawing room after he had thanked her for coming but declined her help and gazed at him for a long moment.

“Ralph,” she had said then, “you are back? You are really
back
?”

He might have been forgiven if he had not known what on earth she was talking about. But he
did
know.

“Yes,” he had said. “I am, Mama.”

She had closed her eyes and drawn a slow breath. “Chloe did this?” she had asked. “It is a good marriage after all, then, is it?”

“It is very good,” he had assured her. “I called upon Viscount Harding and his wife. Chloe came with me. And I wrote to Sir Marvin Courtney and to Lord and Lady Janes.”

“You were not responsible for what happened to their sons, Ralph,” she had said. “Your father and I told you that again and again.”

“It seems their parents agree with you,” he had told her. “I am so sorry, Mama. I must have given you years of heartache—and Papa too. I wish I could make it up to him. I wish—”

But she had surged to her feet.

“Ralph,” she had said with the severity he could remember from his childhood when he had been up to some mischief. “You must not
do
this. Yes, your father was unhappy because
you
were unhappy and there was nothing he could do or say to comfort you. But you had nothing whatsoever to do with his brief illness and passing. He loved you always, and he
always
understood, even when he felt at his most helpless. I will
not
have you feel guilty over your father or over me. You will have children of your own one day, soon, I hope, and then you will understand how parents ache to see their children happy and would never, ever want to see their children unhappy over
them
.”

Her words, and the passion with which she had
spoken them, had startled Ralph. How little he had known his parents, he had realized a little sadly. It
was
sad in his father’s case because he could do nothing now to cultivate a closer relationship with him. It was not too late with his mother, though. And it was time he looked at her, not through the selfish eyes of a boy, but through the more mature eyes of a man so that he could see her as a person with all her imperfections—and his own.

He had hugged her warmly before she left. He had not been able to remember the last time he had done so.

He looked across the ballroom now and smiled when he saw the partially opened French windows leading out onto the balcony. They would have to be closed soon, pleasant as the cool outside air felt. For the king might come. Chloe had reacted with near hysteria when he had told her, but she had soon recovered and squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.

“Well, then,” she had said, a martial gleam in her eye.

That was all. She had not needed to say more. Chloe, he believed, would always confront her fears and march straight through the middle of them. Whether he had had something to do with making her that way, he did not know, but certainly she had not been like it last year when she had fled London at the first whisper of gossip. Perhaps he
had
had a positive influence on her, as she had had on him. He doubted he would ever have approached Harding if it had not been for his wife.

His wife!

It was time he went up to see if she was ready for the ball. The first of their guests would be arriving in the next half hour or so. And there would be many of them. Of all the invitations they had sent out, they had received only
four refusals, and each of those had come with a personal note of regret. They could expect almost everyone, then, as well as a few people who would inevitably slip in without having been invited. This ball was going to be one of the grandest squeezes of the Season, a prospect that would have horrified him just a couple of months ago.

His mother had been quite right, he thought as he made his way upstairs. He
was
back. He felt as though he had shed a great burden and was physically lighter. He felt years younger. He felt his age, in fact—he was only twenty-six.

The strange thing was, of course, that his grief—for his friends, for all the men of his regiment who had died while he was in the Peninsula, for his father, for his grandfather—had sharpened to a painful degree during the past few weeks even as his sense of guilt had ebbed away. But then
all
his feelings had sharpened.

He was in love with Chloe.

Yes, he was—madly, passionately in love, though he had tried hard not to make an idiot of himself by showing it. But his feelings went deeper than the merely romantic or sexual—though neither of those two felt like a
mere
anything.

He
loved
her.

There was no language for that particular state, however. It merely
was
. He loved her. He supposed he had shown it or at least a glimmering of it during the past weeks. He certainly had not tried to hide it. But one day soon he was going to have to say something, even if only the inadequate cliché
I love you
. Words, he understood,
especially words that expressed emotion, were important to women. He wished it were not so, but it was.

One day soon he would tell her.

*   *   *

Despite all the stress of hosting a ball for the
ton
during the London Season and even the expectation that the king might make one of his rare appearances there, and despite the fact that some of the guests and combination of guests made her feel a little as though her head were spinning on her shoulders, and despite the fact that the evening was less than half over and disaster might still strike before it ended—despite it all, Chloe was feeling happy.

Quite consciously
happy
.

She had confronted her worst fear a few weeks ago, and really it had not been so dreadful after all. Her papa had looked apprehensive and had even shed a tear when she told him about her visit to the Marquess of Hitching. But when she had hugged him tightly and told him that he would always,
always
be her beloved papa, he had shed a few more tears and hugged her back and told her she was a good girl and had done the right thing. And he was here at the ball tonight with Graham and Lucy and Mr. Nelson even though she had warned him that the marquess had been invited and had accepted.

The marquess had arrived fairly early with his family. He had squeezed Chloe’s hand as they passed along the receiving line and smiled at her. The marchioness had inclined her head, setting her hair plumes to nodding, and murmured something cool and gracious. Lady Angela had looked slightly disdainful but had bidden Chloe
a polite good evening. Viscount Gilly had taken her hand in his, raised it to his lips, and called her sister, a mocking though not noticeably malicious gleam in his eye.

A few minutes later Chloe had seen her papa actually shake the marquess by the hand and introduce Graham.

Ralph’s grandmother, wearing heavy mourning, had come with Great-Aunt Mary, who looked resplendent in purple with an enormous turban on her head and a jewel-encrusted lorgnette. The two of them were sitting in the small salon close to the ballroom, holding court to a number of the more elderly guests.

The Duke of Stanbrook had come, as had Lord and Lady Trentham. And several of Gwen’s family and lady friends, to whom Chloe had been introduced at an afternoon tea, were there with their husbands—the Earl and Countess of Kilbourne, the Marquess and Marchioness of Attingsborough, Viscount and Viscountess Ravensberg, Lord and Lady Aidan Bedwyn, the Duke and Duchess of Bewcastle. The ladies felt like personal friends, Chloe thought, even though she had met a few of them only on that one occasion.

She belonged.

She was wearing the emerald green evening gown she had had made especially to please the dowager duchess. She had had her hair trimmed again, and Mavis had done wonders with the curling tongs. And she wore the emerald pendant necklace and earrings with which Ralph had gifted her earlier today. She believed she looked her best and no longer felt the need to fade into the background and hide the vividness of her coloring. Whether the
ton
believed the Marquess of Hitching really was her father she neither knew nor cared.

She was happy. She had thought she would be contented just to be married, and indeed she would have been if the bargain she had agreed to with Ralph had been kept strictly according to its original terms. But there was so much more. Oh, she must never expect more than she already had, but it was enough to make her happy.

Ralph was a changed man. His eyes were no longer blank or shuttered. He had been forgiven—or at least he had been assured that no forgiveness was necessary because no offense had been committed. More important—of infinitely greater importance, in fact—he had forgiven himself. He had recognized too, perhaps, that he had never been as much to blame for his friends’ presence in the Peninsula and in the line of fire as he had always insisted upon believing.

He was at peace with himself. That did not mean that he had stopped mourning those three men or ever would. Nor did it mean that he would not continue suffering the aftereffects of having been at war, of having killed and been gravely wounded, of having witnessed unspeakable atrocities, all at the age of eighteen. But at least he was fully in the land of the living again.

He was fond of her, she believed. They still carried on with their nearly separate lives during the daytime, as was the way of the
ton
during the months of spring, and attended social functions together in the evenings. They still made love each night. Ah, but the nature of that lovemaking had changed. Some of their encounters were brief, some more prolonged. Some were quiet, others more tumultuous. Sometimes they spoke, sometimes not. Sometimes—most times, in fact—he stripped her
nightgown up and off her body before he started or soon after he started. Almost always he slept with one arm beneath her neck or an arm flung across her waist, or one leg hooked over hers. He seemed to need to touch her. The lovemaking no longer seemed to be
just
about getting her with child.

It was not love. She must not and would not make the mistake of thinking it was. She would only invite heartbreak if she did. But it was . . . something. There was some affection there. She was sure of it. There was, after all, some emotional bond between them. And it was enough. She would make it enough.

She was happy.

Chloe and Ralph had led off the dancing together with a quadrille. Then she had danced a stately country dance with her papa. She had been standing with Graham and the Duke of Stanbrook before the third set, having just greeted a couple of late arrivals, and had expected that one of them would solicit her hand. But before either could speak up, the Marquess of Hitching was bowing to her and asking if he might claim the set.

“I suppose,” she said when the figures of the dance brought them together and allowed them a few moments for private speech, “we are the object of much curiosity.”

“Does that upset you?” he asked her.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not at all. I am glad you came.”

The figures took them apart again.

“I am glad you came back to London after last year,” he said the next time they had a chance to speak, “and that you are well married.
Happily
married, if I am not
mistaken. Your mother must have been very proud of you, Chloe. She would be especially proud tonight.”

She smiled but did not tell him that her mother had been embarrassed by her more than she had been proud.

She danced with Lord Aidan Bedwyn and was dancing with Lord Keilly, her brother-in-law, when a bit of a commotion near the door heralded the appearance in the hall below of the large entourage that preceded the arrival of the king. Chloe hurried toward the ballroom door while the music stopped abruptly and everyone moved back to the sidelines, buzzing with eager anticipation.