Simply Unforgettable (20 page)

She grew hotter. But she could hardly reprove him for his very direct words. She had led the way.

“You need to be in London,” he said. “Bath becomes suffocating after a week or two.”

“You find it so only because you are idle here,” she said. “I am not.”

“Even apart from the fact that you could be with
me
if you were in London,” he said, “you need to be there for your
singing,
Frances. You are wasting your talent by teaching music when you should be performing it. If you were in London, I could introduce you to the right people and you would acquire the exposure you need and the audience you deserve.”

She snatched her hand from his and stood up abruptly, suddenly panic-stricken. He wanted to prostitute her talent, then, just as George Ralston had done? And be his mistress on the side, no doubt? Even though he was about to marry someone else? She felt suddenly bilious. What had she
expected
? She took one step closer to the outdoors and then stopped. There had been no easing of the cloudburst yet.

“I
hated
London when I lived there,” she said, “and vowed that I would never go back there. And I do not need
anyone
to introduce me to the
right people
. I am happy as I am. Can you not understand that?”

“Contented,” he said. “You have admitted before, Frances, that you are
contented
. And I say again that you are not a woman made for contentment. You were made for glorious, passionate happiness. Oh, and for unhappiness too, of course. The challenge of living is to reach for the one and learn from the other, if only the strength to endure. Come with me.”

“I will not,” she said. “Oh, I absolutely will
not
. You think that happiness and sexual passion are one and the same, Lord Sinclair, and that the latter is something to be indulged at all costs. There is more to life than physical gratification.”

“For once we are in total agreement,” he said. “You still believe I am trying to persuade you to be my mistress, Frances, do you not?”

“I do,” she said, turning to look down at him. “And if you say otherwise you lie—or you deceive yourself. I am an independent woman here. I am not wealthy, but I am beholden to no one. I have a freedom many women can only dream of. I will not give that up to become your toy until you tire of me.”

“My
toy
?” he said. “Are you not
listening
? I want to help you share your talent with the world and be happy and fulfilled as a result. Rid yourself of the notion that I am a simple, unprincipled rake. I want you in bed, yes. Of course I do. But more than that, I want
you
.”

She shook her head slowly. She wanted the issue to remain simple. She wanted nothing that would tempt her, as she had been tempted for a few moments back in December. She wanted nothing to shake her resolve to be
sensible
.

“Do you not understand even now?” he asked her. “I am asking you to be my wife, Frances.”

Her mouth opened to reply even before he had finished speaking. She stared at him and closed it again with a clacking of teeth.

“What?” she said.

“I have discovered,” he said, “that I do not want to live without you. I happen to be currently in need of a wife. My grandfather is dying, I am his heir, and I have promised to do my duty and take a bride while he is still living, it is to be hoped. Only today has it occurred to me that you are perfectly eligible, Frances. Your father presumably had some connection with the French court, and you have family ties with Baron Clifton. There will be some who will feel, of course, that I ought to ally myself with someone of more obviously equal or superior rank and fortune to my own, but I have never paid too much heed to what others think, especially where my own comfort and happiness are concerned. And my grandfather, whose contrary opinion is the only one that does matter to me, is inordinately fond of you—and he honors and respects your talent. He will be won over in a moment when it becomes clear to him that I will have no one but you. And my mother and sisters will be won over—they love me and want my happiness when all is said and done. Marry me, Frances. I do not much like the look of this stone floor, but I will go down on one knee before you if you wish. It is something you will be able to boast of to our grandchildren.”

He flashed a grin at her.

She could not seem to draw sufficient air into her lungs. It was not that there was not enough inside the pavilion. There seemed to be far too much of it, in fact. Her legs were shaking, but if she had tried to return to her seat on the bench, she would have staggered and fallen, she was sure. She stood where she was.

He wanted to
marry
her?

“You are to marry Miss Hunt,” she said.

He made an impatient gesture with one hand.

“That is the general expectation,” he admitted. “We saw a fair amount of each other while we were growing up, as her family often visited my grandparents and we often visited them. And, of course, our families embarrassed us horribly—or me, anyway—by referring openly to their hopes that we would make a match of it one day and by teasing us mercilessly if we so much as exchanged a glance. And my mother holds firmly to the notion that Portia has been waiting for me to the advanced age of three-and-twenty. But I have never spoken a word to her of any intention to marry her, nor she to me. I am under no obligation whatsoever to offer for her.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “she would disagree with you.”

“She has no grounds for doing so,” he said. “I have made my own choice and it is you. Marry me, Frances.”

She closed her eyes. They were words the romantic, unrealistic part of her had dreamed for three months of hearing. She had even enacted scenes similar to this in her imagination. But if she could ever have expected to hear them in reality, she would have dreaded them. Her heart, she thought, would finally break in all earnest.

When she opened her eyes she was feeling dizzy and somehow staggered back to her seat. He took first one and then both of her hands in his own—they were warm and large enough to encompass her own. He lowered his head and held both of them against his lips.

“I cannot go back to London,” she said.

“Then we will live at Cleve Abbey,” he said. “We will raise a large, riotous family there, Frances, and live happily ever after. You may sing for all our neighbors.”

“You know you could not live in the country indefinitely,” she told him. “You will have to take your place in the House of Lords when you inherit the earldom. I cannot go back to London or polite society.”

“Cannot?” he asked. “Or will not?”

“Both,” she said. “There is nothing in the life you offer me that attracts me.”

“Not even my person?” he asked her, lowering her hands.

She shook her head.

“I do not believe you,” he said.

She looked up at him with a flash of anger.

“That is the trouble with you,” she said. “You really cannot take no for an answer, can you, Lord Sinclair? You cannot believe that any woman in her right mind would prefer the sort of life I lead here to the sort of life you offer me, or that she would prefer relative solitude here to a life in the beau monde with you.”

Both his eyebrows arched upward. But he looked rather as if she had struck him across the face.

“No!” He frowned. “This is not good enough, Frances. What is so abhorrent about life in London or life as the Viscountess Sinclair that you would reject me in order to avoid them? I cannot believe you are so averse to me personally. I have seen you, I have felt you, I have
known
you when your guard is down, and that woman responds to me with a warmth and a passion that match my own. What
is
it?”

“I am not eligible,” she said. “Not to be the Viscountess Sinclair. Not to be acceptable to your grandfather or your mother or the
ton
. And I am not going to say any more about it.”

There was no point in saying more—in pouring out the whole sorry story of her life. He was an impulsive man, she knew. She doubted he had really thought out all the implications of what he was doing this morning. He liked to get what he wanted, and for some reason he wanted her. He would not listen if she told him all. He would brush everything aside and try to insist anyway that she marry him.

It simply could not happen—for her sake and for his.

And for the sake of his grandfather, whom she liked and respected.

Good sense must rule the day as it had ruled the last three years of her life—with a few notable exceptions.

And so she lost her chance for joy. Fate had singled her out quite markedly, both after Christmas and this week—he was quite right about that—and she rejected fate, setting against it the power of her own free will. What else, after all, was free will for?

She would
not
destroy her hard-won new life and his into the bargain.

“I do not
like
society,” she said as if that were explanation enough for refusing an offer that was hugely advantageous to herself and that he knew was emotionally appealing to her. “It is artificial and vicious and not what I would choose as the environment in which to live the rest of my life. It is what I deliberately left behind me more than three years ago in order to come here.”

“If I had been there then,” he said fiercely, his eyes blazing into hers, “and if you had known me then, if I had asked you then what I have asked you now, would you have made the same choice, Frances?”

“Hypothetical questions are like the future you spoke of earlier,” she said. “They are a meaningless figment of the imagination. They have no reality. I did
not
meet you then.”

“
No
is your final answer, then,” he said. It was not really a question.

“Yes,” she said, “it is.”

“Good God!” He released her hands. “One of us must be mad, Frances, and I fear it may be me. Can you look me in the eye, then, and swear to me that you have no feelings for me?”

“Nothing is ever as simple as that,” she said. “But I will not swear either way. I do not have to. I have said no. That is all that needs saying.”

“By Jove, you are right.” It was he who got to his feet this time. “I beg your pardon, ma'am, for causing you such distress.”

His voice was tight with hostility.

She suddenly realized that they were surrounded by silence again except for the sounds of water dripping off the roof onto the soaked ground. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

“But there is still a part of me, Frances,” he added, “that could cheerfully throttle you.”

She closed her eyes and set a hand over her mouth as if to stop the outpouring of words she would regret. She was assailed with such a yearning to hurl herself into his arms and throw good sense to the winds that she felt physically sick again.

Thoughts whirled through her head in a chaotic jumble.

Perhaps she should be more like him and simply
act
instead of always thinking.

But she would not do it. She
could
not.

She got to her feet, stepped past him, and looked up at the sky. It still looked full of rain, and indeed there was still a fine drizzle falling.

“The hour is at an end, Lord Sinclair,” she said. “I am going back to the school now. You need not accompany me.”

“Damn you, Frances,” he said softly.

They were the last words he said to her—the last words of his she would ever hear, she thought as she hurried down the path, heedless of the fact that it was very wet and muddy and even slippery in places.

He had wanted her to
marry
him.

And she had said no.

Because, for a whole host of reasons, a marriage between them simply could not work.

And because love was simply not enough.

She was mad, she thought. She was mad, mad, mad.

He had asked her to
marry
him.

No, it was not madness. It was sanity—cold, comfortless, merciless sanity.

She was half running by the time she came to the gates and emerged from the gardens onto Sydney Place. And she was half sobbing too, though she tried to tell herself that it was only because she was out of breath from hurrying to get back to school before the rain came down heavily once more.

Lucius had wanted to marry her, and she had been forced to say no.

16

Actually participating in all the busy rituals of the spring
Season—attending balls and routs and Venetian breakfasts and concerts and theater performances, riding in Hyde Park during the morning and tooling a curricle about it during the fashionable hour of the afternoon, being drawn into a thousand and one other frivolous activities—actually participating in it all did help to distract one's thoughts from past humiliations and one's spirits from taking up permanent residence in the soles of one's boots, Lucius found over the coming month, especially when one also spent a large portion of one's nights at White's or one of the other gentlemen's clubs and one's mornings at Jackson's boxing saloon or Tattersall's horse auction or one of the other places where gentlemen tended to congregate in significant numbers and one could forget about being on one's best social behavior.

Of course, it was all very different from the life he was accustomed to, and he was forced to endure the wincing sympathies and rowdy teasing of a number of his acquaintances, who could not fail to notice that he was living at Marshall House instead of in his usual bachelor rooms and that he was participating in the activities of the marriage mart and who, if the truth were told, were only too glad that it was not their turn to be thus occupied.

He danced with Emily at her come-out ball and with Caroline at her betrothal ball two weeks later. He took both sisters—and even Amy once or twice—shopping and walking and driving. He took his mother visiting and shopping and browsing at the library. He escorted them all to the theater and the opera. He even, for the love of God, escorted them to Almack's one evening, that insipid bastion of upper-class exclusivity, where there was nothing to do
but
dance and eat stale bread and butter and drink weak lemonade and make himself agreeable to a veritable host of young female hopefuls and their mamas.

But their hopes, raised no doubt by the sight of someone so eligible in unaccustomed attendance at
ton
revelries, were entirely misplaced and no doubt they soon realized it. For even before he arrived back in London from Bath a dinner at the Marquess of Godsworthy's town house on Berkeley Square, at which his family members were the guests of honor—and indeed the
only
guests, he was soon to discover—had already been arranged, as had a similar dinner and small soiree at Marshall House a few evenings later. And soon after his return—the very day after, in fact, when he paid a courtesy call on the Balderstons with his mother and sisters—arrangements were made for the two families to sit together in the Earl of Edgecombe's box at the theater one evening within the week.

On each occasion—during both dinners, during the courtesy call, and at the theater—Lucius found himself seated beside Portia Hunt. They could not have seemed more like an established couple if they had already been betrothed.

She was indeed in good looks—
very
good looks. She had the sort of beauty that only improved with age. Her blond curls and blue eyes and perfect features and English rose complexion had made her merely exceedingly lovely as a girl. Now she was nothing short of beautiful—and added to that beauty were a poise and dignity that proclaimed her to be a lady of perfect breeding.

Everything about her was perfect, in fact. There was not a pimple or a mole or a squint or a fatal flaw in sight. And she was the sort of woman to whom duty was so instinctive that she would doubtless present her husband with an heir and a spare within two years of the nuptials before she even
thought
of the possibility of bearing daughters.

She would be the perfect wife, the perfect hostess, the perfect mother, the perfect viscountess, the perfect countess.

The word
perfect
definitely needed to be stricken from the English language.

Lucius bore it all with determinedly gritted teeth and stiff upper lip. He had made the fatal—and quite unexpected—mistake of falling in love, and the woman had snubbed and rejected him. On the whole it was a good thing. Although his grandfather had admired Frances Allard as a singer, he might have taken a dimmer view of accepting her as a candidate for the role of future Countess of Edgecombe—even though she was a lady with impeccable connections on her father's side, at least.

From the moment he had left Bath—and a rather ghastly moment it had been too—Lucius had set the whole experience of falling in love and blurting out an impulsive marriage proposal behind him with a grim firmness of purpose.

He had made a promise at Christmas time, and by God he would keep it. And since he could not have the woman he had wanted, he would have Portia instead. He could not do better, after all—a thought he entertained with a slight grimace.

His mother was a fond parent and liked to see all of her children enjoy their particular moment in the sun. For the first two weeks after Lucius's return to town that moment belonged to Emily as she prepared for her presentation to the queen and then her come-out ball. And for the next two weeks the moment was Caroline's as Sir Henry Cobham finally came to the point and talked marriage settlements with Lucius and then made his offer to Caroline herself. And of course the occasion necessitated another ball at Marshall House in celebration of their betrothal.

Had Lucius offered for Portia Hunt within that month, he would have unfairly taken the focus of attention away from one of his sisters and his mother would have been upset.

At least, that was what he told himself—he was trying hard to give more of his time and attention and affection to his family than he had been in the habit of doing through the heedless years of his young manhood.

But to procrastinate indefinitely was not an option for him this spring. He had made his promise to his grandfather, and nothing remained but to make his formal offer and be done with it.

He would do it, he decided, the morning after Caroline's ball. There was no further excuse for delay. Already his mother was making pointed remarks, and his grandfather was regarding him with twinkling eyes every time Portia's name was mentioned—and it was mentioned with ominous frequency.

He dressed with care under Jeffreys's expert ministrations and took himself off on foot to Berkeley Square—only to find after steeling himself to the ordeal that Lord Balderston was not at home. The ladies were, however, the butler informed him. Did Lord Sinclair wish to wait upon them?

Lord Sinclair did, he supposed, though he thought longingly of his male friends now fencing or sparring or looking over horseflesh at all the usual haunts—and not a one of them with a care in the world.

When he was shown into the morning room, however, he found that Portia was in there alone.

“Mama is still in her own apartments after the late night at Caroline's ball,” she explained after he had made his bow to her.

It was understandable. It was somewhat surprising, in fact, that Portia herself was up and so neatly dressed and coifed that she was able to receive guests on a moment's notice. There had not been a mother or sister in sight when he had left Marshall House.

Did she add early rising to her other virtues?

“Do you wish to send for her?” he asked, looking about the empty room. “Or for your maid?”

“Do not be foolish, Lucius,” she said with cool poise, indicating a chair while she seated herself gracefully and picked up her embroidery frame. “I am no green girl to be needing a chaperone in my own home while entertaining a longtime friend.”

They were on a first-name basis, having known each other for many years. Were they also friends?

“Lady Sinclair must be very gratified,” she said, “with one daughter married and another betrothed and Emily taking so well with the
ton
. And Amy will surely do as well next year if she can learn to curb her natural exuberance.”

Her needle flashed in and out of the cloth, producing a perfect peach-colored rose.

“I hope,” he said, “she will never learn that lesson, Portia. I like her well enough as she is.”

She looked up at him fleetingly.

“It was unfortunate,” she said, “that you took her walking in the park so late the afternoon before last. She ought not to have been seen by the fashionable crowd. And she ought not to have laughed with such unconsidered delight at something you said to her and so made herself conspicuous. Lord Rumford ogled her through his quizzing glass, and we all know
his
reputation.”

“When my sister is on my arm,” he said, “she is quite safe from the impertinences of rakes, Portia. And girls who are not yet out need fresh air and exercise just as desperately as young ladies who are.”

He was feeling irritated again, he thought. Dash it all, irritation was becoming almost habitual with him. Doubtless ninety-nine out of every one hundred ladies in London would agree with Portia.

Would Frances? He ruthlessly quelled the thought.

“Your fondness for your sisters is commendable,” Portia said. “But I am sure you would not wish to hurt Amy's chances of taking well next year after her presentation.”

He stared at her blond curls and wondered if the years ahead were to be filled with such gentle reproofs for his every opinion and action. He would be willing to wager a fortune that they were. He would escape, he supposed, as most husbands did, by tramping about his lands, gun in hand and dog at heel, when in the country and by retreating to his clubs when in town.

“It was remarkably kind of you,” she continued, “to take her with you when you went to Bath. Her youthful presence must have been a great comfort to Lord Edgecombe.”

“I believe it was,” he said. “And I enjoyed it too.”

“But was it wise,” she asked him, “to allow her to attend a soiree?”

He raised his eyebrows, but she did not look up from her work.

“And an assembly at the Upper Rooms?” she continued. “Mama was shocked beyond words when Emily told us that, I do not mind telling you, Lucius.”

Her hair was parted neatly down the middle, he saw, though the parting extended for only a few inches above her brow before disappearing under her carefully arranged curls.

Not like someone else's that he knew . . .

“At least,” she said, “you had the good sense to hire a schoolteacher to accompany her, but the woman really ought to have stopped her from dancing, Lucius.”

His eyes narrowed with fury, and he silently contemplated the pleasure it would give him to flatten even one of those perfect curls and throw the whole coiffure out of balance.

“Miss Allard was my grandfather's particular guest,” he said. “Amy danced with my permission.”

“One can only hope,” she said, “that you have not done her irreparable harm, Lucius. I shall look forward to offering her guidance and countenance next year.”

As his wife and Amy's sister-in-law, no doubt.

“Will you?” he said.

She looked up, and her needle remained suspended over her work.

“I have offended you,” she said. “You need not trouble yourself, Lucius. Ladies know better than gentlemen what is what and are quite prepared to restore and keep the proprieties while men go freely about their own business.”

“Of raking?” he said.

He looked for two spots of color in her cheeks, but he realized suddenly that Portia never blushed—or needed to, he supposed.

“I think we might maintain a silence on that subject, Lucius,” she said. “What gentlemen do in their own time is their business and of no concern whatsoever to well-bred ladies.”

Good Lord! Devil take it! Would her calm not be ruffled if he went raking through life from their wedding day to the day of his death? The answer, he suspected, was that indeed it would not.

“You came here this morning to call upon Papa?” she asked him.

“I did,” he admitted. “I will come back some other time.”

“Of course you will,” she said, looking steadily at him.

Did she have any feelings for him? he wondered. Any
warm
feelings? Did she really
want
to marry him?
Him,
that was, as opposed to just Viscount Sinclair, the future Earl of Edgecombe?

“Portia,” he said as she resumed stitching, “do you have the feeling that we are being thrown together at every turn this spring, whether we wish it or not?”

Her needle paused, but she did not look up.

“Of course,” she said. “But why should we not wish for it?”

His heart sank.

“You wish for a connection with me, then?” he said.

A connection
—what a clanger of a euphemism!

“Of course,” she said.

“Of course?” He raised his eyebrows as she looked up.

“Men are so foolish.” For a moment the look she bent on him seemed almost maternal. “They avoid reality at every turn. But it cannot be avoided indefinitely, Lucius.”

“You
wish
to marry me, then?”