Only a Promise (5 page)

The two of them spent the rest of the morning in the duke’s study, talking on a variety of topics until the old gentleman nodded off over a cup of coffee. Ralph sat silently watching him and remembering the vigorous, half-fearsome figure of his grandfather as he had been years ago, full of barks and fury at any sign of misbehavior, but with eyes that twinkled incongruously. One of his waistcoat pockets had always slightly bulged out of shape with the sweetmeats he carried there.

Ralph went riding after luncheon. He went to see his grandfather’s physician and found him just returning from a distant farm, to which he had been summoned to set the broken arm of a laborer who had tumbled from a barn loft.

His Grace was not suffering from any particular malady, Dr. Gregg assured the Earl of Berwick. Except old age, of course. His heart was not as strong as it had once been, as was to be expected, and he had a tendency to fall victim to any chill that happened to be lurking in the neighborhood. He suffered from the rheumatics and a touch of gout and indigestion and many of the other ills age was prey to. He was frail when compared with a younger man. But he might outlive them all for anything the physician could say to the contrary.

Ralph thanked him, shook him by the hand, and took his leave.

His grandmother was unnecessarily fearful, then. Grandpapa was not at death’s door. However, no matter how close the duke was to his end, the fact remained that there was only the one heir. It was that heir’s clear duty to marry and produce sons of his own, preferably while his grandfather was still alive.

Ralph determinedly kept his mind off the peculiar events of the early morning. It was made easier by the fact that Miss Muirhead did not put in an appearance for the rest of the day, and when the duke remarked upon her absence during dinner, Her Grace explained that the poor young lady was feeling under the weather and was keeping to her own room for fear of infecting either of Their Graces.

“She really is kindness itself,” Her Grace remarked.

After that Ralph was more determined than ever to leave in the morning. He spent the evening with both grandparents and ended up reading aloud to them while his grandmother knitted and his grandfather rested his head against the chair back and closed his eyes. The duchess looked speakingly at Ralph when he began to snore softly. Ralph read on.

He took his leave the next morning and drove back to London in his curricle under heavy clouds that again threatened rain at every moment but did not actually shed any. The weather exactly matched Ralph’s mood. His future course had been set for him, and there was no longer any possibility of procrastinating. The days of his freedom—if he ever had been free—were effectively over. What if no one was ever free, though? What if
everything was preordained? But only deeper depression could come from thinking thus, and he shrugged off those thoughts and turned to others.

Yesterday morning.

Was she just a fortune hunter? A gold digger? A cold fish?

I am ineligible.

To be fair, perhaps, it had sounded as if none of the disasters that had befallen her was her fault. She was enjoying the pleasures of her first Season when her sister ran off with that stupid ass Freddie Nelson—at least, he assumed that was the playwright she had spoken of—who seemed to believe that a flamboyant lifestyle was a good substitute for brains and talent. She was not the one who had made a prize spectacle of herself during the resulting affair of honor. How
exactly
like Graham Muirhead, though, to turn up for a duel and then refuse to take up a pistol or make as small a target of himself as he could.

Nor was it her fault that the man who had made her the object of his gallantries—she had not named him beyond starting to call him
Lord
Somebody-or-other—had turned out to be a cad of the first order. And it was not her fault that her mother had once been shockingly indiscreet with a man with hair of a distinctive shade of red or that he had passed on that feature to the child she had borne less than nine months after her hasty marriage to Muirhead.

Ralph felt little doubt that the gossips—for once—had the right of it. Miss Muirhead probably felt little doubt either, though she denied it.

As much as none of these crimes was her fault, she
was indeed ineligible. She must have been mad—or just desperate—to expect that he would marry her simply to save himself the bother of courting someone else. His grandmother had received her as a guest into her home, it was true, despite her notoriety, but she would surely have forty fits of the vapors if he should suddenly announce his intention of marrying the woman. And he could only imagine the reaction of his mother and sisters.

He shook off the thought of Miss Muirhead. He had other, more pressing and even more dreary things to consider.

He ought to have begun his campaign that evening. He had even found an invitation to a ball that would be attended by all the cream of the
ton
and its daughters. He went instead, after dining alone at home, to Stanbrook House on Grosvenor Square, to call upon George, Duke of Stanbrook, if by some chance he was at home.

George was both friend and father figure, having opened his home all those years ago to wounded soldiers and given them the time and space in which to heal. And healing, George had recognized, as so few people did, did not consist just in a mending of broken bones and a knitting together of cuts and gashes, but in a restoration of peace and sanity to troubled, shattered minds. True healing was a slow business, perhaps a lifelong one. George had always had the gift of making each of the six of them who had stayed the longest feel that he or she was special to him.

Ralph had often wondered if any of them had lavished nearly as much attention upon George, who had been as deeply wounded as any of them by war even though he had not been on any of the Napoleonic battlefields.

He
was
at home, and by some miracle had no plans to go out. Ralph found him sitting by the fire in his drawing room, a glass of port at his elbow, an open book in his hand. He closed the latter and set it aside with a welcoming smile, and for the first time it occurred to Ralph that perhaps it had been selfish of him to come thus, unannounced. Perhaps George had been looking forward to a quiet evening at home.

“Ralph.” He got to his feet and stretched out a hand. “Come and warm yourself by the fire while I pour you a drink.”

They talked about inconsequential matters for a few minutes, and Ralph felt himself begin to relax.

“I have just come up from Sussex,” he said at last. “I was summoned there by my grandmother. But I was not kept. I was sent scurrying back to choose a bride, soon if not sooner. And to get her with child on our wedding night unless I want to incur Her Grace’s undying wrath.”

George regarded him with quiet sympathy.

“Your grandfather is poorly?” he asked.

“He is well into his eighties,” Ralph said by way of explanation.

“You are not regretting,” George asked, “that you let Miss Courtney go?”

Ralph winced and looked down into the contents of his glass while he twirled it slowly. Miss Courtney was the younger sister of Max Courtney, one of his best friends—one of his
dead
best friends. Ralph had known her since he was a boy and she was just a child. He had used to tease her whenever he went to stay with Max during a school holiday and, when they were a bit older, flirt just a little with her. After his return to town from
his three years in Cornwall, he had run into her more than once at a social entertainment, and she had glowed with happiness and explained that being with him brought her closer again to her beloved brother. She had started to write to him, indiscreet as it was for a single lady to communicate privately with a single gentleman. Ralph had feared that she was developing a tendre for him. He had avoided her whenever he could, and had ignored a few of her letters and written only brief, dispassionate replies to the others. While he was at Middlebury Park this spring, she had written to inform him that she was about to marry a clergyman from the north of England. He had felt guilty then about having offered her so little consolation after Max’s death, about ignoring the affection she had tried to give him. He had shared his feelings with his fellow Survivors.

“I had nothing to offer her, George,” he said. “I would have made her life a misery. I was too fond of her to encourage her to attach herself to me.”

George said nothing. He sipped from his glass and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and draping his free arm along the arm of his chair. He was the picture of elegant relaxation. His eyes rested upon Ralph without in any way staring at him. It was his gift, that pose, that silence, that attention. Waiting. Inviting. Not in any way threatening or judging.

Ralph set down his own glass, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. He settled his gaze on the fire.

“I will make any woman’s life a misery,” he said. “I can choose a lady and marry her, George. I can give her
all the security of my name and wealth and prospects. I can bed her and impregnate her. That is all, though. And it is not enough.”

“Many women would call it paradise,” George said gently.

“I think not,” Ralph said.

“No,” George agreed softly after the silence had stretched awhile. “It is not.”

Ralph’s eyes moved to his. George agreed that a marriage devoid of all feeling, even affection, would be hell on earth. He had never talked of his own marriage, which had begun at a very young age and ended when his wife committed suicide after the death of their son in the Peninsula.

“There are all those young ladies out there,” Ralph said, “eager to find husbands at the great marriage mart. Eligible husbands. I am as eligible as anyone could possibly be. Any one of them would be ecstatic to net me, even if I
do
look like this.” He freed one hand in order to gesture toward his scarred cheek.

“Some say the scar makes you more dashing,” George said.

“I have to marry one of those girls,” Ralph said harshly. “Soon. And then I will shatter her dreams and ruin her life.”

“And yet,” George said, “the very fact that you know it and pity the young lady you will choose demonstrates that you care. You
do
care. You just have not fully understood that yet.”

Ralph gazed broodingly at him.

“I should hate you,” he said.

George raised his eyebrows.

“For saving my life,” Ralph told him. “More than once.”

It was something they had not spoken of for a long time—those occasions when Ralph had tried to take his own life, the further occasions when he had wanted to do it but had talked about it instead until he had been persuaded out of it.

“And do you?” George asked. “Hate me?”

Ralph did not answer him. He transferred his gaze back to the fire.

“There is one woman,” he said, and stopped.

He did not want to
think
about that one woman.

George was silent again.

“Did you ever meet Lady Angela Allandale last year?” Ralph asked.

“The Incomparable?” George asked. “She had an army of young bucks and a few older ones dangling after her, but would settle for none of them. Is she back this year? Is
she
this one woman?”

“And did you hear,” Ralph asked, “any scandal about a young lady who looked exactly like her and was almost certainly a by-blow of the Marquess of Hitching?”

“I did, yes,” George said, “and thought how unfortunate it was that the poor lady had inherited his very distinctive coloring and looked so exactly like his legitimate daughter that she was almost bound to arouse gossip. She was not strictly illegitimate though, if I remember correctly. She was the acknowledged daughter of some baronet. Hmm. Muirhead, I believe?”

“Yes,” Ralph said.

“Is
she
the one woman?” George asked.

“She is staying with my grandmother at Manville Court,” Ralph explained. “Her mother, now deceased, was Her Grace’s goddaughter. Miss Muirhead is there, I believe, because she feels uncomfortable at home with her father, who insists that the gossip is so much nonsense yet almost came to public blows with someone who brought that gossip into his neighborhood. She suggested a mutually beneficial bargain to me yesterday. She wants a husband but no emotional tie. She knows that I need a wife but have no emotional tie to offer.”

“A match made in heaven, then,” George said softly.

“Perhaps,” Ralph agreed.

There was a lengthy, rather heavy silence during which a log shifted and crackled in the fire, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney.

“Tell me why you are considering making what would appear to be an unwise connection with this unfortunate lady,” George said. “Is it perhaps because you believe you will end up hurting her less than you would one of the innocents just out of the schoolroom? Be careful if that is so, Ralph. We can all be hurt. Even ladies who have become social pariahs. Even you. But
tell
me.”

Ralph gazed broodingly into the fire before he spoke again.

We can all be hurt.

I
t was her last chance, Chloe had thought yesterday when she made her proposition to the Earl of Berwick.
Her last chance.
Well, if that was what it had been, then it was gone today. Just as he was.

The excuse she had made for the rest of yesterday of feeling under the weather had hardly been a lie. The thought of having to face him again had made her stomach churn with threatened nausea. So had the thought of facing anyone else. Or even herself for that matter. She felt she had somehow abused the duchess’s hospitality. Her Grace would be
horrified
if she knew what Chloe had suggested to her precious grandson.

Chloe had sat cross-legged on her bed for hours on end staring straight ahead, the curtains pulled across her window, her shawl hugged about her shoulders and across her bosom. If she got to her feet, she had thought once or twice when she had been tempted, she might see herself in the dressing table mirror. And if she got to her feet, she would have to admit that life went on and that she had no choice but to go on with it, day after dreary day until the end, which doubtless would be far distant
just to spite her. She would probably live to the age of ninety.

Her life since the age of eighteen had been one disappointment and disaster after another, culminating in last year’s ghastly suggestion that everything in her life so far had been based on a lie. For of course she
had
suspected—and still did—that perhaps her papa was not her real father. The Marquess of Hitching! The very name could turn her cold to the very core. Yet she had still dared to hope this morning that the future might yet hold
something
for her. The dashing of that hope had caused her to hit the rock bottom of despair.

Again.

It was beginning to feel like an almost familiar place to be. But perhaps hitting this new low had something to be said for it, she thought now, this morning, after she had awoken and realized in some surprise that she had slept for several hours. At least now there was no further down to go. And at least she would not have to fear coming face-to-face with the Earl of Berwick again, not for a long while, anyway. The maid who had brought up her pitcher of hot water when she rang for it was able to assure her that his lordship had already left Manville, taking his curricle and his baggage coach and his valet with him.

And so, because she had little choice in the matter anyway, Chloe went downstairs. She deliberately counted off all her many blessings as she made her way to the breakfast parlor despite a total lack of appetite. There was much for which to be grateful, not least of which was the fact that she was not an employee at Manville Court but a guest, and Her Grace was invariably kind to her.
She had the freedom to wander where she would, the park about the house being extensive and beautifully landscaped. And summer was coming. Everything looked better in the sunshine and heat. Oh, yes, there were many blessings. There were thousands of women who would give a right arm for her life.

Her thoughts touched upon her father, who had been very upset before she left home and even more so when she did leave, but she shied away from those particular memories. She had had to leave. She had needed to put some distance between them while she sorted out a few things in her mind, though she could not quite name what those things were. Either she believed him or she did not.

Why was she here if she believed him?

Four days after the Earl of Berwick had returned to London, Chloe went for a longer-than-usual walk. The weather seemed to have turned a corner from the chill of late spring to the warmth of approaching summer, and the sun was shining. The duchess had gone visiting but had said with a twinkling smile at luncheon that she did not expect Chloe to accompany her, since Mrs. Booth had grown very deaf and would surely be happier with the company of just one very old friend.

Chloe walked across the east lawn, taking care to give the old oak tree a wide berth, until she came to the river and the humpbacked stone bridge that led across to the meadow, which was an integral part of the park though it was made to look half wild rather than cultivated. It looked very inviting in the sunshine, its waving grass liberally dotted with daisies and buttercups and clover. Even from this side of the river she could see butterflies
fluttering among them. But she was not in the mood today for sunshine or gaiety. Perhaps some other day . . .

She followed the path along the near bank instead and was soon in the deep shade of the trees that grew in a dense band on both sides of the river. The water was dark green here until it quickened its pace into small eddies with white bubbles of foam as it approached the downward slope to the west and the rapids and the series of falls that would take it plunging into the large natural lake below. She slowed her steps and reveled in the smells of water and greenery, in the sights of the myriad shades of green and the occasional shaft of sunlight, in the sounds of rushing water and shrill birdsong.

She picked her way carefully on the natural stepping stones of the rough path, though fortunately they were dry and posed no real danger. And then she was down and came out into full sunlight on the bank of the lake. Shade and the sound of the falls fell away behind her.

She was still determinedly counting her blessings. How very fortunate she was to have this park to walk in whenever she chose to step beyond the confines of the house, and how fortunate to have the house itself to live in for as long as she wished. She did not know how long she
would
stay. Surely eventually she would return home. She knew her papa had always loved her as dearly as he loved Graham and Lucy, who were undoubtedly his. She knew that the gossip and her questions had caused him a great deal of distress. She did not know if he had told her the truth. Perhaps she never would. And perhaps it did not matter. She loved him anyway. She knew
that,
at least.

But if she only knew without any doubt what the truth
was
 . . .

It was dreadful indeed—only someone who had experienced what she was going through could possibly understand—to discover at the age of twenty-six that one’s very identity was in question, that one’s father, one’s beloved
papa,
might not be one’s real father at all. One of her reasons for leaving London in a great hurry last spring had been her horror at the possibility that she might run into the Marquess of Hitching somewhere and somehow feel a connection to him. It had been worse than horror, in fact. It had been mindless panic. If there was one person in this world she
never
wanted to meet or even glimpse in passing, it was the man who had known her mother nine months before
her
birth.

She shook off the unwelcome, plaguing thoughts yet again and tried very hard to rejoice in the peaceful beauty of her surroundings. She stooped to pick up a few flat stones and leaned back against the slender trunk of a willow tree that bowed its branches over the water on either side, enclosing her in what seemed like her own private world. The water was blue here and sparkled in the sunshine. The fronds of the willow were very green. The air was loud with birdsong.

She took one of the stones in her right hand, positioned it carefully with her thumb, and tossed it across the water in the way her father had taught her with endless patience when she was a child. But she was out of practice. It hit the surface and sank from sight without bouncing even once.

Well, one must not give in to defeat after just one try, or even, perhaps, after twenty. Her second stone bounced five times—an all-time record—and was halfway across
the lake before it finally sank from view. Chloe smiled smugly. Even her father had never done better than that.

Oh, Papa.
Suddenly she felt like weeping.

She should have been content with the triumph of those five bounces, she thought ruefully a short while later when the fifth stone, and the third in a row, bounced once halfheartedly before sinking. Though perhaps her attempts had accomplished something. She was feeling a little more cheerful.

“It is all in the flick of the wrist,” a voice said from so close by that Chloe jumped with alarm and dropped the three remaining stones.

She peered through the fronds of the willow to her left. But she had not mistaken the voice. It was not one of the gardeners. The Earl of Berwick was standing out on the grass a mere few yards from the tree. He must have walked the direct route down from the house. He was dressed for riding, complete with long drab coat worn open and tall hat that cast his face in shadow but did not quite mask the menace of his scar. He was flicking a riding crop against the supple leather of his boots. Her heart felt as though it had leapt into her throat and was beating wildly there like a bird trying to escape.

“If you had been here a few moments ago,” she said, “you would have seen one of my stones bounce five times.”

“Braggart,” he said. “Or fibber.”

“It is true,” she protested.

What
on earth
was he doing back at Manville? And not just at the house but down here at the lake? She felt a little ridiculous standing where she was, as if she were cowering behind the willow fronds, hoping not to be
seen. She pushed her way through and stepped out onto the grass.

He looked her over unhurriedly, a slight frown between his brows, his eyes cool and unreadable. Chloe clasped her hands behind her back and stopped herself from apologizing for being here when perhaps he had been seeking some solitude. He could have avoided talking to her, after all. It must have been obvious to him that she had not seen him come.

But why would he seek solitude in the park when he must have just arrived? His boots were covered with a film of dust, which suggested that he had ridden this time, not driven his curricle. Had he ridden all the way from London? Why?

She said something very foolish instead of waiting for him to break the silence.

“I am not going to apologize for the other morning,” she said. “I have had time to reflect upon what I suggested, and I have changed my mind. It was nothing but foolish impulse. I have forgotten it. I hope for the duchess’s sake you have brought her happy news from London.”

“Changed your mind?” he said after a few moments, during which his riding crop tapped rhythmically against one boot. “That is a pity. I came back here to offer you marriage, Miss Muirhead.”

*   *   *

The duke was dozing in his study, Weller had informed Ralph on his arrival, and Her Grace had gone to pay an afternoon call on Mrs. Booth. Miss Muirhead had not accompanied her. He regretted that he did not know where she was.

She was not in either the drawing room or the morning room. Ralph had looked in both. Nor was she on the eastern terrace. A gardener he had hailed had seen her walking across the east lawn in the direction of the river an hour or so ago. But she was neither down on the riverbank nor in the meadow on the other side of the bridge. Ralph looked to his right when he reached the bridge, but going that way would have brought her to the driveway and on out through the gates to the village. He would surely have seen her if that had been her destination. Besides, if she had been going to the village, why take such a circuitous route? The path to the left led in among trees and around the bend in the river to the rapids and then the falls. If she had gone that way and kept going, she would have ended up at the lake. It seemed a likely destination on such a lovely day.

Ralph took the short route to the lake past the house again and down the steep west lawn. He almost missed seeing her when he got there. The bank of the lake seemed deserted. But then a stone arced out from behind the nearer fronds of the weeping willow and bounced once at far too sharp an angle to allow for a second bounce. It sank from sight. It could only have been thrown by a human hand—a not-very-skilled one. Another followed it, and then another, with the same result.

And then he saw her, standing with her back to the slender trunk of the tree, her green dress an almost perfect camouflage against her surroundings. Except that she wore no bonnet and that red hair of hers gave her away if she was indeed hoping to stay hidden. Did she never wear a bonnet?

She had not seen him approach, and, stupidly, he almost turned back before she did. But what the devil? He had come all this way, on horseback, ahead of his baggage coach and his valet, with the sole purpose of seeking her out privately. Good fortune had been with him—he had seen neither of his grandparents first.

He had attended a ball the evening after he called upon George. There had been nothing unusual about that, of course. He often attended balls. He usually danced a few sets with ladies of his acquaintance. It would be impolite to his hostess not to dance at all. What he did
not
often do, though, was allow that hostess—Lady Livermere in this case—to latch on to his arm as though she had been presented with a prize trophy and parade him about, introducing him to what had seemed like an endless stream of young ladies he had not seen before. And their mamas too, of course. No self-respecting young lady attended a ball without her mother at her elbow every moment when she was not dancing.

He had wondered if his mother had been having a word with Lady Livermere. The two ladies enjoyed more than just a passing acquaintance.

He had become aware of a buzz of sharpening interest around him as the evening proceeded. He was quite sure he had not imagined it. For of course he had been obliged to reserve a set of dances with as many of those young ladies as could be fitted into a long evening of dancing. He ought to have been glad. Without any real effort on his part he had been presented with a number of the Season’s eligible hopefuls, and at the same time signaled that this year he was in search of a bride. He might, if he had really wanted to avoid the bother of a
protracted search, have made his choice before the evening ended, presented himself to the young lady’s father the following day, and made his offer before another evening came along. His betrothal might have been announced in all the morning papers the day after that. All the uncertainties of his existence might have become certainties.