Only Enchanting (33 page)

“Lady Ponsonby, how delightful,” Lady Frome said, smiling as she indicated with one hand that Agnes should take a seat. “But your mama-in-law has not come with you?”

The countess meanwhile had come hurrying across the room, a smile of warm welcome on her face, both hands outstretched.

“How kind of you to call,” she said. “I said to Mama yesterday after I had met you at Hookham’s Library that I hoped we would become close and dear friends as well as just neighbors. Did I not, Mama? And here you are the very next day. But without Flavian?”

Agnes offered just her right hand, and the countess shook it before they all seated themselves.

“I came alone from choice,” she said.

Both ladies looked expectantly at her.

“I wished to make it clear,” Agnes said, addressing herself to the older lady, “that I regret the embarrassment my unexpected appearance in town as Flavian’s wife caused you. It was never my intention to hurt anyone.”

Lady Frome looked embarrassed anyway.

“We were certainly taken by surprise,” she said. “And so, of course, were Lady Ponsonby and Marianne. We cut short our visit because our continued presence in your drawing room would have been an intrusion upon what was clearly a private family matter. I hope we did not give offense by leaving so abruptly. I would not have any hard feeling between our families for worlds. We are neighbors, you know. But of course you know. Our two families have always been on the best of terms.”

It was a gracious response, and Agnes instinctively liked the lady. For a moment she was tempted simply to smile and change the subject and remain for a decent time before taking her leave. Perhaps it would be best to say no more. But she abandoned the idea with some reluctance. She had come to do some plain speaking, and
if she did not do it now, she never would, and something, some mutual wound, would fester beneath the surface of all their future dealings.

Enough had been suppressed in her own family life for her to want to avoid its happening again within her marriage.

“I hope our families will remain on as good terms as they always have been, ma’am,” Agnes said. “We must speak first, though, about what threatens to be an embarrassment. I think it must have been extremely sad for you all, and for you in particular, Lady Hazeltine, when the late Lord Ponsonby—
David
, I mean—judged himself too ill to continue with the marriage plans both your families had encouraged. That is to say, it must have been very sad for you when he set you free.”

The countess turned rather pale.

“I was dearly fond of him all my life,” she said, “and I yearned to marry him and give him some happiness, even though it was perfectly clear he would not live long. But he was so foolishly
noble
and would not let me do it. I begged and I wept, but it was all to no avail. He would not have me. He insisted that I be free to marry someone who had a life ahead of him, someone I loved. Though I loved
him
.”

She sounded sincere enough.

“He was the dearest, sweetest young man,” Lady Frome said. “I am sure he loved Velma very much, but once he had decided that it would be selfish to tie her to a dying man, there was no shifting him.”

“It must have seemed like double punishment,” Agnes continued, addressing herself now to the countess, “when Flavian was so badly wounded in the Peninsula after you had transferred your love to him and had celebrated your betrothal to him with such joyful festivities.”

Lady Hazeltine bit her lip and looked stricken.

“He has
told
you,” she said. “But I suppose it was inevitable
someone
would have done so sooner or later. We
were
in love, Lady Ponsonby. I will not deny it even if Flavian does. I will even go farther. I was dearly fond of David and wished more than anything to marry him and make him happy. But it was Flavian I
loved
. Just as he adored me. We had loved each other quite hopelessly for years before David set us free. Yes, and he did it
because
he knew we loved each other and he loved us both. He was the dearest of men. “

“My love.” Lady Frome sounded reproachful. “This is hardly—”

“No, Mama,” her daughter said, two spots of color blossoming in her cheeks, her eyes flashing, “she
ought
to know the truth, since she is the one who broached the subject. I would not have said a word if she had not. Flavian was out of his mind when he was brought home, Lady Ponsonby. He did not know anyone or anything. And he was
violent
. He was little more than a wild animal. His physician informed us all he would never be any better, that sooner or later he would have to be confined to an asylum, where he could harm no one but himself. What was I to do? It was worse than if he had died. And Leonard was dreadfully upset too. He was Flavian’s dearest friend in the world, and kept blaming himself for selling his own commission a few months before Flavian was wounded, and leaving Flavian alone—as if his staying could somehow have averted disaster. He was distraught. We both were. And we turned to each other for comfort. We married. But I never loved him or he me. Indeed, I think we came to hate each other.”

“Velma, my love,” her mother pleaded, “you must not say these things. Not to Lady Ponsonby. It is not kind.”

“Perhaps we would have made something of our marriage if Flavian had not started to recover,” Lady Hazeltine continued, just as if her mother had not spoken. “But Leonard never forgave himself, and I . . . Well, I ought to have waited longer.”

Agnes felt a bit sick. Perhaps she had been mistaken at the library yesterday. She had thought then there was some calculation, even a hint of spite, in the countess’s words.

“And now,” Lady Hazeltine said, “just when I might have made amends, I have been treated as if I had been merely faithless and heartless all those long years ago. And I have become the object of a cruel revenge. Was it justified, Lady Ponsonby?”

No, Agnes thought. Oh, no, she had not been wrong.

“My love.” Lady Frome was clearly distressed. “Lady Ponsonby is in no way to blame.”

“Your bitterness is understandable, Lady Hazeltine,” Agnes said. “At this point, however, it will accomplish nothing. You and Flavian loved each other years ago, but people change. He has changed, and I daresay you have too, and will recover from your disappointment and even be thankful that you are no longer tied to the past. Flavian married me last week because he wished to do so, and I married him for the same reason. It is an accomplished fact.”

“It is clear that you have never loved,” the countess said with a sad, sweet smile. “True love does not die, Lady Ponsonby, or recover from
disappointment
. It is not affected by the passage of time.”

Agnes sighed.

“I wish you well,” she said. “I wish you future happiness with all my heart. And I wish for peace and amicable relations between our families. But I will not be
made to feel like someone whom my husband married only because he wished to punish a former love of his. I will not tolerate being seen as the other woman in a tragic love story. He married
me
, Lady Hazeltine. More important, as far as I am concerned, I married
him
, and I
count
. I am a person, too.”

She had got to her feet while she was speaking, and picked up her reticule in preparation for leaving. Her legs were not feeling any too steady, though at least her voice had not shaken.

The other ladies had stood too.

“I do assure you, Lady Ponsonby, that I wish you every happiness,” Lady Frome said with apparent sincerity. “And I do thank you for calling. It was a brave thing to do, and all alone too. I shall look forward to our being neighbors.”

“I wish you well too,” the countess said. “Though I believe, Lady Ponsonby, you will need all the good wishes you can get.”

Agnes nodded and took her leave.

At first she walked briskly homeward, Madeline at her heels, but after a few minutes she calmed and slowed her steps to a more ladylike pace. She was not sure the visit had accomplished a great deal beyond upsetting her horribly. But she was not sorry she had gone. She hated situations in which people did not talk out their differences. At least if there must be malice and enmity between her and the Countess of Hazeltine—and she suspected there must—then it was as well that its existence and causes be out in the open.

Nothing had ever been said after her mother left. Nothing. Ever. One day a five-year-old child had had her beautiful, vibrant, laughter-filled mother there with her, and the next day her mother was gone, never to reappear. No explanation had ever been given. Agnes had
had to piece together the little she knew from snatches of conversation she had heard down the years, none of it ever spoken directly to her.

And so the hurt, the sense of abandonment, had festered. Perhaps it would have anyway, but the pain would have been different. Or so she had always believed. Perhaps not. Perhaps pain was simply pain.

She had planned to be on a stagecoach by now, on her way home to Dora. After just one week of marriage. What a dreadful humiliation that would have been. Instead she had agreed to stay for one more week, and then, perhaps, to go to Candlebury Abbey instead of to Inglebrook.

One more week. To piece together a marriage. Or to bring it to an end in a lifelong separation. But the sense of defeat in that last thought filled her with sudden anger.

She would be . . . Oh, what was the very worst word she could think of? She would be
damned
before she would give up her marriage after two weeks just because Flavian had once loved a beautiful woman who had chosen spite over stoical dignity when he had married
her
. She would be . . . Well, she would be
double
damned.

So there!

He wanted to give their marriage a chance.

Well, then. So did she. More than a chance. She was going to make a
marriage
of what they had. See if she didn’t.

19

F
lavian did not sleep or even try to. He had one week. Seven days. He was not about to waste even an hour of one of them catching up on his beauty sleep. The trouble was, though, that he did not know what he could do to convince Agnes to stay with him, beyond making love to her night and day. He was good at that, at least. Or, rather,
they
were good at it.

He did not think sex alone would persuade her to stay, however. And he was not even sure she was going to allow him near her bed in the next seven days or nights. Besides, good sex might actually convince her
not
to stay. She had that alarming belief that passion must be obliterated from her life if she was to maintain any sort of control over it. All because of her mother.

He had his valet prepare a bath for him. He felt a bit better once he was clean and in fresh clothes, and once he was shaved. He had also done some thinking. He had not come up with any short-term solutions, and they were what he really needed, but at least he could do
something
. He went back to the book room, seated himself at the desk, and wrote two letters—
not
his favorite activity at the best of times. But they were necessary and overdue. He could hardly call in person on his
father-in-law, since to do so he would have to leave London and squander his precious week. The same applied to his brother-in-law. It was a courtesy to write to them both. More than that, though, he had a few questions to ask them, and he hoped at least one of them would be more forthcoming with him than they had ever been with Agnes.

Having written the letters more or less to his satisfaction, and sealed and franked them and handed them into the care of his butler, Flavian sallied forth to White’s Club, partly because he could not think of anywhere else to go, since Agnes had other plans for the day and he was not involved in them. But partly he went in the hope that he might find someone to whom he might address a few discreet questions. Maybe there
was
something he could do.

Any number of gentlemen greeted him there. He might have attached himself to congenial company for the rest of the day and most of the night if he had wanted to, despite the fact that at least half the
ton
was still waiting for Easter to come and go before descending upon London. Most of the company was roughly his own age, however, and of no use to him today. And he was not well enough acquainted with any of the older men, he realized as he sat down in the reading room and gave the morning papers only a small amount of his attention.

And then two of his uncles and one of his cousins arrived together and greeted him with hearty good humor, slapping his back and pumping his hand, talking and laughing. Not surprisingly, they drew the frowning attention of other occupants of the room, who had been quietly reading their papers until now.

Uncle Quentin and Uncle James had just arrived in town, Flavian understood, with the aunts and all the cousins for whose existence they claimed responsibility. One of the latter, Cousin Desmond, Uncle James’s eldest
son and heir, beamed his pleasure at seeing someone roughly his own age. Two of the other cousins, one for each uncle, were female and eighteen years old and ripe for the marriage mart, so there had been all the necessity of descending upon the capital early enough to do a mountain and a half of shopping, all of which was absolutely necessary, according to the aunts, and all of which would beggar them for the next half century or so, according to the uncles.

Flavian shepherded his relatives into the coffee room, where they could talk without drawing upon their heads the censure of the newspaper readers.

They had just heard about Flavian’s marriage, and both uncles professed themselves delighted that he was showing some sense at last, though rumor had it that he had married an unknown, a matter that could be easily remedied, of course, by making her
known
without further ado, an endeavor in which the aunts would be only too happy to have a hand. The uncles were positively bursting with curiosity. Who was the lucky lady, eh? Eh? Or was it the groom who was the lucky one?